The emperors sons-[ONGOING] Book 2 Ravenwatch Updated (Chapter 2 live)

Diamanchez · March 23

The Emperor's Sons: A Trilogy of Secrets, Shadows, and Sacrifice

"In the gathering darkness of the Era Indomitus, three Chapters of Legend must face the ghosts of their past to save the future of the Imperium."

Book 1: Angels of Virtue — On a forgotten world, a Dark Angel Chaplain must confront a betrayal that mirrors the fall of Caliban. To protect a secret that could damn his brothers, he will learn that faith is a weapon more dangerous than any bolter.
Book 2: The Ravenwatch — Deep behind enemy lines, the sons of Corax wage a war of shadows. But when a mission of cold logic encounters a paradox of ancient time, the Ravenwatch must choose between their memories and their survival.
Book 3: The Red Angels — A suicide squad of outcasts, led by a "Ghost" who refuses to taste blood, finds themselves the final line of defense against a Daemons To stand against the Chaos Forces, they must embrace the very curse they have spent centuries fleeing.

"Greetings, Brothers. I am a a new 40k fan from Mexico, and English is my second language(Apologies in advance for the grammar and sentence structure) I have spent the last year or so writing a trilogy (150k words and they are all around 10 chapters each) during my downtime and in my breaks (I work in a call center), and I've finally finished them. I will be posting one chapter once a day to stay consistent (I wont post on the weekends, this time is spent polishing and editing chapters to ensure quality stays high). While these first three books are 'locked in,' I am reading every comment and taking notes for my final fourth book, my only training has been reading 40k books, so your feedback on tactics and lore is highly appreciated!"

Prologue

‘’My name is Chapter Master Godfrey leader of the angels of virtue I am now issuing the black box protocol and will be recording my final moments’’

The space marine turns on a device on his helmet meant to record everything and keep it safe so it can be found later by his successor or anyone alive to find, the year is 799 of the 41st Millenium the imperium is besieged on all sides and is struggling to survive it is decaying is corrupt and it is dying since the last time a Primarch was seen with Vulkan and the war of the beast there has been no direction no real purpose no light to follow no leader to inspire and no future to believe in because in the grimdark future there is only war.
War can happen in many fields many planes and with many different people species and entities however in this particular war we shall follow the sons of the Lion The Primarch of the 1st legion the legion all other legions are based off but a very secretive legion following the example of their primarch, but these sons of the Lion are different they do not obsess over what their brothers call ‘’the fallen’’ they were created for a different purpose and that is where we start in the beginning of the end.
The air is cold the atmosphere is dense its heavy there is no one left only one space marine sitting in the middle of the spaceship he is seeing reports in red all across his visor he is injured he is dying and he is running out of time the ship is a vessel of the angels of virtue a dark angels successor chapter and have been ambushed by a xenos race known as necrons they are almost entirely wiped out with only a few escaping and the ones that didn’t are dead or dying in a ship that is supposed to be 10km long however after necron attacks it has been reduces to the size of a cargo ship and there he sits with no air no gravity waiting for the enemy to come waiting for the final battle waiting for his last chance to take an enemy of the emperor down and he is running out of time there is not much oxygen left in his suit and there is no where to go the necrons see this and see no need to finish him off those machines have no code of honor or respect one he realizes this the space marine sits down and initiates his black box protocol and begins to speak.
‘’I do not know how much time I have left however since no one who can take over might be alive to understand what I will say I need to explain this so our chapter can continue’’
the space marine groans there is a shard of metal stuck to his side he is bleeding out but he will die of suffocation before the wound bleeds him out he removes it blood drops float around him at least now he can speak comfortably.
‘’We are the Angels of virtue and we have been created for one purpose and one purpose only, to find the Lion and so to do so we have made our whole chapter follow 7 virtues or 7 talents the Lion deployed or used when he was among us in hope that we might inspire other troops to remember the Lion and find more information on him we were created after the war of the beast after lord Vulkan fell the imperium knew it needed another primarch so we were created’’
the space marine looks over at his helmet visor and sees the oxygen is running extremely low.
‘’I must confess that I did not think I would do this but I need to for the survival of the chapter, we are structured around 7 captains each one embracing a different virtue from the Lion in this battle we have lost 90% of our legion so for future rebuilding there must always be 7 captains carrying on the Lions different virtues we must do so even more important than the imperium more important than the fallen the Lion is everything’’
the visor starts beeping rapidly telling the space marine to seek oxygen.
‘’We are the Sons of the Lion we do not relent we do not give up and we will find the Lion, we will find-‘’
as he tries to gasp for breath to speak he is unable to do so he tries but cannot he scratches at the wall at the chest piece he struggles he kicks he spins in his own blood he starts convulsing and for one second he stops and sees a planet in his eyes a death world in the halo stars and gets enough strength and air to say:
‘’The Lion’’

year 999 41st millennium
Battle Barge ‘’Lions Fangs’’ Main ship of the Angels of Virtue

A space marine with skull for a helmet is sitting his command post he takes off his helmet he is tired he is stresses he cannot even wrap around his head about the events that just transpired his name Is chaplain Rickus and Current Chapter master of the Angels of Virtue he lifts a black box and starts listening to his predecessors recording and as he is putting his head down in contempt another space marine enters the room salutes and speaks
‘’My lord, we need to regroup and I bring a status report’’
the chaplain gets up puts the box away and puts his skulled helmet on and asks
‘’Who are you to demand anything of me?’’
the other space marine removes his helmet and speaks
‘’I am sergeant William of the primaris reinforcement for the angels of virtue on orders from the primarch Lord Guiliman we have come here to join you and our brothers’’
the chaplain walks up to the marine and looks up and down and says
‘’how much do you know of our chapter? Do you know its purpose? Its structure? Its importance?’’
the primaris marine looked the chaplain in the eye and said
‘’we are to find the primarch the Lion, my lord’’
the chaplain stood back and looked at him
‘’yes yes we are, however another primarch has already returned our chapter lays in ruins you know this you have the reports in your hands so why are we being reinforced? What do you know? What can you tell me about the angels of virtue now?’’
the marine gulped noticing the chaplain was not in some sort of way correct or in a proper state of mind the marine spoke as to give a report to help or assist or get the chapter master to understand the situation
‘’we are the angels of virtue created from the Geneseed of Lord Lionel Johnson we are tasked with finding him while upholding his virtues which are lead by a champion or captain to enforce such virtue such as 1st captain the captain of strategic warfare the 2nd captain of shadows focusing on assassination and espionage the 3rd captain the captain of battle focusing on the warrior side of the space marines and the 4th captain of honor mainly led by the apothecary the 5th captain of change the main librarian and the 6th captain of iron led by the tech marines and of course the captain of the 7th the chapter master and chaplain Brother Rickus’’
the chaplain just grunted not amused on how the new blood spoke and nodded to continue as asking for more you see the sons of the Lions all have secrets and the more you know of what the enemy or ally knows the better and so the primaris continued
‘’And we are here because Lord Guiliman believes the search of his brother should continue by his sons and so we have come to reinforce you which I would say is just in time, currently the angels of virtue were on a 10 year crusade along the black templars but fled once they got a tip a fallen dark angel had been sighted and so you left our cousins came here and followed the fallen to the halo stars uncharted territory mainly and just as you were about to reach him necrons attacked him captured him he escaped and now you have his escape pod and he is waiting to be questioned correct? However you decided to attack the necrons although outnumbered and now you lost 90 percent of you chapter and 2 of your captains such thing had not happened since 200 years ago when the previous chapter master died and you took over and still you wounded the ship and it crash landed now you cant move towards the planet because both your ships and troops are depleted and the ultramarines and custodian that delivered us are gone with their mission completed so the question now is what will you do my lord?’’ Rickus seemed satisfied the primaris was up to date and actually was relieved he had someone capable he can now use to continue his mission he started walking toward a doo and turned around and said
‘’Follow me, you will learn a bit of what it truly means to be an angel of virtue’’
the primaris followed they walked up a massive hallway leading up to an shaft where they dropped several floor all the way to the dungeons of the ship they had come to the captured fallens cell and were entering the room when the fallen stood up and looked at his visitors, as the primaris looked at him with no armor dirty battle scarred and tired but with no signs of any mutation or chaos infliction looked concerned not scared for an astartes does not feel fear or so he thought, and so the fallen stood up and got near his visitors and spoke
‘’I have told your men everything I do not know where any other fallen are nor do I wish to continue this battle I wish for this to be over you have been chasing me for 300 years since I arrived on this time I want absolution I understand that attacking the lion in Caliban was-‘’
before he could finish all he could feel was a heavy almost unreal pain in his stomach and before the fallen could react he has 3 feet away from the chaplain almost like something had pulled him back, but there was nothing to pull him no the fallen looked down and saw his stomach red bulging and swollen he understood then because of his hard time breathing and the blood coming from his mouth that the chaplain had kicked him quick and effortlessly but with a might of a thousand blows the chaplain approaches the fallen on the ground and picks him up by the back of his head and puts his face in front of him and says
‘’you will never speak his name unless mentioned first, now tell me everything you know’’
the fallen barely able to speak coughs up blood and starts talking
‘’the fallen *cough* we focus on escaping and surviving we have no real plan for the imperium or-‘’
he was cut off by a cold metal feeling coming up from his chest to his chin when he looked closer he noticed it was a Crozium right under his chin and he was made to look at the chaplain and was told
‘’Everything you know about the Lion’’
the fallen somewhat confused since all his previous encounters with dark angels all he had ever been asked or questioned or led to believe is that they cared for the fallen no one had ever mentioned the Lion before since everyone knew he was dead 0ver 10k years ago he took a deep breath and said ‘’when the attack happened on Caliban and Luther fought him in the last hour and the warp storm happened the planed exploded and the Lion was caught in the explosion and then he Die-‘’
before he could finish the cold feeling from under his chin had disappeared and then it reappeared on his left shoulder but what was cold at first quickly turn to heat then pain and then uncontrollable amounts of blood started gushing out from his shoulder the fallen looked only to see most of his shoulder was gone and his left arm was hanging on to his torso only by skin and ruptured bones with tendons spasming with blood gushing out the fallen had no choice but to get on the floor and scream
‘’THAT’S ALL I KNOW!! I SWEAR!! WHY!?!’’
the fallen rolling on the ground sees the chaplain coming to him and asks
‘’so you know nothing of the Lions whereabouts? We followed you since we were told a fallen with a relic was seen and you had nothing when we found you’’
the fallen trying to speak but unable to do so in pain tried to speak quickly and clearly and said
‘’it was a signal….. in the old days we would put beacons in wrecks or ships to com back for old tech later but the device was taken from me by the necrons you shot down and is in the planet below now’’
the fallen was slowly slipping into darkness bleeding out however Rickus got near the fallen and shot twice to the floor with the head of the bolter pistol the heated muzzle he started to burn the wound to stop the bleeding and with his crozium he shocked the fallen causing him to wake up the fallen had enough
‘’I said everything I know about the fallen I know nothing else’’
Rickus looked at him and said
‘’I believe you now’’
and just as he finished speaking he brought down his crozium once, twice and thrice until the skull of the fallen was barely recognizable there were parts of his brain on the wall on the floor and on the Crozium brain matter dripped from the weapon and blood drops spilled down the chest of the chaplain, the primaris looked stunned he had heard that the dark angels had secrets but a fallen? Luther? Caliban? The Lion died in an explosion? So many questions flooded his mind the fallen dark angel seemed harmless seemed like just a regular soldier in the wrong side of a battle and he now saw Rickus different this was not a chapter master brooding over his losses or concerning himself with the possible death of his chapter this was now a man on a mission on a purpose and so the young primaris had only one question and he knew he needed to ask this question the answer needed to be said out loud he needed to hear it from the man he will now follow he asked
‘’what now?’’
the chaplain called 2 neophytes and gave them his weapon to clean he looked at William and said
‘’now primaris you and me will fill in the gaps with the soldiers you have brought me we will stake out the planet and repair and intercept anything that goes in and out and once we are repaired ready and you new primaris soldiers have learned our ways then and only then we will make landfall’’ the young sergeant still needed to hear it the whole reason he was made the reason he was there he needed to hear it and the chaplain noticed the young astartes was waiting for more and he spoke
‘’We are going to war’’

Chapter 1
Secrets

The year is 001 of the 42nd millennium after two years of rebuilding and training the angels of virtue are finally ready for the war that will lead them to their primarch or so Chapter master Rickus believes and it is with him we start waiting in the bridge of his battle barge as primaris now captain William shows up and speaks ‘’ My lord everything is within 100% capacity we are ready’’ Rickus looks over at him and says
‘’Ah brother primaris thank you, please gather the rest of the captains’’
William looked annoyed and said
‘’My name is William my lord, and yes I will get the captains’’ Rickus got down from the bridge and met the young captain face to face and tells him
‘’you are brother primaris or primaris captain until you prove yourself, we are here to find our Primarch so unless you leave an impression on me besides good training results you will be only A primaris, understood?’’
William looked at him put his helmet back on and said ‘’understood’’
he saluted and left to get the other captains while Rickus waited one by one they started to arrive the first one there was of course Captain of the 6th unit Captain William captain of warfare representing the Virtue of strategic warfare of the Lion mainly and then one by one they came the next one was captain of the 1st unit Brother Bernard Captain of and represented the virtue of pure battle and is a blade champion next was the captain of the 3rd unit Brother Oswin Captain of shadow and represents the virtue of the lion that gets things done no matter the cost or strategy and had just returned after serving 200 years with the deathwatch next was the captain of the 6th unit Brother Manus the head apothecary and represents the Virtue of Honor next was the captain of the 2nd unit Brother Geoffrey the librarian and he represented the virtue of the lion to follow the forbidden and keep it to himself to use and lastly was captain of the 4th unit Brother Mikhail representing the virtue of the Lion for different types of weapons and vehicles he was also the head tech marine and the captain of the 7th Chaplain Rickus representing the virtue of the Lion for unyielding faith in the emperor was waiting they all came in and gave a slight nod or bow to Rickus before sitting all but Brother Oswin it was said there was bad blood between the two of them and so the meeting began everyone sat in their power armor each with 2 bodyguards each with weapons at their side and so Rickus spoke
‘’Mikhail give us the report your techs and the mechanicus have come up with’’
the tech marine stood up and in the middle of a table a globe hologram of the planet showed up
‘’it is a death world mostly abandoned by the empire after lord macharius conquered it centuries ago tech-wise they can fight and have advanced military and even vehicles however for some reason they have no aircrafts or space travel, and also since we shot down the necrons on their planet 2 years ago nothing changed so either all necrons died on impact or the people on the planet took care of them since then its been silent’’
and Rickus looked at the librarian and nodded
‘’I have seen some disturbing images, but a good one too’’
he stood up and started channeling the warp with his mind ‘’ah yes, here you are’’
he closed his eyes and spoke as describing something
‘’it is ancient it is not big it belonged to someone and it will help us find that someone it’s a beacon a radar a signal to something or someone’’
before anyone could speak
‘’The Lion’’
said Rickus, everyone looked around the room and waited for someone to speak but no one could say anything their whole purpose was to find the lion for thousands of years that’s all that mattered they would even abandon allies and even abandon fallen dark angels if it meant having a tip of the Lion but one did speak it was Brother Oswin he stood up and walked up to the Chaplain Rickus looked around and then he looked at him and asked
‘’what proof do you have? I ask this because you just lost us most of our chapter not too long ago and even before that you are the one that convince Former chapter master to attack this section to look for an artifact that lead to his death and your promotion to chapter master’’
he could hear Rickus angrily breathing he could feel the armor of the Chaplain almost shaking from holding himself back he is the chapter master he cannot incite this he must be better
‘’Brother Oswin thank you for asking I believe this will lead us to the Lion for plenty of reasons like you said last chapter Master Godfrey came and died in the same space we are now when we had come we tried to invade the planet but were met with necrons and with his last breath his helmet looked at the planet and he said the Lion and as well as the fallen said to me it was a device used by the old Dark angels so it makes sense that the Lion will be somehow related to this signal that is why we are about to invade this planet and find that relic, and you Brother Oswin can question me however you like but you will follow orders because unlike you I stayed with the chapter I cared for it and although I did suffer a great loss recently I did not abandoned my brothers to fulfill some self given punishment for 200 years’’
Rickus was now face to face with Brother Oswin no one could even tell how or when he had gotten so close even Oswin was shocked he was in charge of being unseen and had just spent 200 years of constant fighting unknown aliens and yet this space marine had somehow snuck up on him but from the front? Taken aback and not seeing any lies told by Rickus he started to go for his plasma gun on his side out of basic instinct of anger however he stopped short when he looked down and saw a plasma pistol aiming right at his chest all Rickus had to do was pull the trigger and Oswin would be a puddle on the floor his guards could not reach him and Oswin could not react in time once again he was in shock this was not the Rickus he knew 200 years ago
‘’try it’’
said Rickus and Oswin thought of it for just one second and stood back and went back to his seat and did not speak for the rest of the meeting then captain William took over and as the young Primaris marine explained the Angels of Virtue were now ready and will Invade the planet in 3 teams The first team will be sent to deal with the locals of the planet and have them join the imperium or die the second team will go to find the relic In the crash and the third team will go to what they believe will be a necron entrance since Brother Mikhail believes this is a necron tomb world and the fact that the previous chapter master was attacked and the angels attacked necrons backs it up
‘’That will be all’’
said Rickus however one warrior did not stand up it was brother Bernard
‘’something you want to say brother?’’
said Rickus, brother Bernard was the oldest in the chapter and had served 3 chapter masters so his words and knowledge were always appreciate it however it was not words that he wanted to rely upon the chapter master but a duel request
‘’I request a duel’’
Rickus wants to get the invasion going as soon as possible and just says
‘’By the throne brother we have no time’’
but the old warrior stood up put his helmet on and got in a fighting stance and looked over at his opponent and to everyone’s surprise he was looking over at the primaris and new captain of the 6th unit the primaris captain William, Rickus just sighed out a ball of hot air now needing to see this thru he speaks
‘’Primaris you will have to fight him now he is the most stubborn of us all but let me just ask something before I give my consent, Brother Manus can you treat an injury if these 2 fight? And brother Geoffrey, can you see any event where they die because of this?’’
while the librarians eyes shone the Apothecary answered ‘’Well I can treat anything brother with the God emperor on our side we can treat almost any injury, except beheading im afraid I still haven’t worked on a solution for that one’’
as he was looking over his med stims for the pain the librarian was finished and he said
‘’they will both die’’
Rickus and everyone kept quiet and even Brother Bernard who was ready to fight looked over the librarian they had known each other the longest but for the same reason he knew the sentence was not over and so the librarian spoke again
‘’they will both die, eventually but as far as if they fight today will they die today? No they will not, they can fight to their hearts content with no pulled punches, brother Manus will treat any injury this I have foreseen’’
Rickus shakes his head and lets them proceed Bernard with a sword a shield and William with a pair of swords Bernard rushes in first feints a shield bash but William does not bite instead he attacks the shield from the front with his 2 swords Bernard parries with the shield and presses forward William staggers and starts back stepping Bernard does not miss this and swings at Williams legs with his right hand full power sword ignited William barely sees this and jumps to dodge and the blow barely nicks his left ankle Bernard the veteran sees this and pushes his shield forward he tries to pin William to the wall and succeeds he reaches his arm back to stab the young primaris captain they are stopped by a scream
‘’STOP!!’’
Brother Bernard stops and looks over at Rickus and says ‘’Why? He is not yet ready to be a captain he is nothing but a young child in knights armor, besides at most I was just going to stab him in the shoulder or chest depending on how he struggled he won’t die Brother Geoffrey said so’’
Rickus spoke in a Grimm tone
‘’I was not talking to you Bernard I was talking to the primaris, look down’’
as the veteran looked to his stomach he could see that although he had pinned William to the wall from in front of the shield 2 arms had reached out into Bernards stomach and were just centimeters away from puncturing his guts
‘’although Brother Manus could have treated the wounds the time it would have taken for either of you to be 100% would be catastrophic for our mission’’
Bernard finally unpinned William from the wall and spoke ‘’it’s the young Angels win then’’
William finally spoke knowing that he was being tested he was used to it for the past two years all he had been doing was training and being tested by his veterans like all primaris who first join he just happened to be the best of them
‘’it was a draw Lord Bernard I hope that whatever answer you were looking for was revealed to you’’
Bernard shook his head and turned to Brother Oswin and pointed his sword at him
‘’you are next, we don’t have time I know Rickus so I will be quick you have ignored for two years and now disrespected the chapter master this will not go un punished’’
as Bernard rushed Oswin a scream was heard
‘’STOP!!’’
this time it came from the entrance it was from one of the neophytes that follow Rickus around and he started making his way to the rest and said
‘’while you are all testing yourselves and making light of the situation we are losing time we could have already been down there searching and looking for our gene father and instead you are all just-‘’
he was cut off as he saw that Oswin had rushed him in his mind he had not noticed or even thought that he had disrespected someone to Oswin a veteran and pretty much a killer from the deathwatch his first instinct was to rush and kill the young neophyte before he could reach him though Bernard was on him like a lion pouncing on its prey with both arms wide open no weapons to move quicker Oswin seeing this took to his instincts and threw a smoke bomb that enveloped most of the place then after a certain thud the sound of liquid spilling on the floor and a scream the smoke cleared and you saw Bernard on the floor with nothing but Oswin’s robes and the neophyte was alive yes, but barely the young neophyte quickly knelt with blood coming from his arm for it was all missing from the elbow down it had been a quick and clean cut slashing through bone and armor alike and the only reason it had cut an arm and not the neophyte himself it was because Rickus had picked up his sword and blocked Oswin’s attack but he had taken too long and could not save the Neophyte fully and there two power swords clashed sparking and releasing the smell of burnt metal into the air none of them moving and finally Oswin spoke
‘’oh what’s this? You drew your blade for me? To protect a neophyte? The blade you swore would only use to banish your enemies, is that what I am now? Your enemy? Will you strike me down brother Rickus?’’
the neophyte stood up and Rickus backed slapped him to the floor again
‘’stay down!! You have done enough damage’’
Rickus then let go of Oswins sword struggle
‘’Forgive my neophyte Brother Oswin, he was out of turn and should not have spoken even if he was right, I believe his arm is penance enough brother’’
Oswin withdrew his sword and stood up
‘’I forgive you brother just as I hope bother Bernard can forgive me he must understand 200 years of death watch service can change your view on things, still though for you to kill two Angels for a neophyte and even draw your blade I guess we all have our secrets right? Chapter master’’
The neophyte was confused he looked behind him and saw two dead bodies he did not notice at first but realized that the moment he started interrupting, that captains Oswin’s bodyguards had already moved to kill the young neophyte but Rickus struck them down one blow each and when he tried to block the third attack which came from Oswin he was too late and the neophyte lost an arm in the process Manus rushed over and started the healing process and closing the wound the cut was too clean to put back together a bionic arm would be needed the neophyte bowed his head and left with Manus to the Med-bay after that they all sat and they had not noticed but when Oswin attacked almost everyone had readied their weapons to strike him down to protect the chapter master still one question lingered in everyone’s mind, what secret did the chapter master have? Why was the neophyte so important to him? To everyone in the room this was the reason why it was so quiet everyone was thinking about the same thing and then words broke the silence
‘’Is that all? Does anyone else need to get something off their chest? A last confession? A petition? A request? A question? No? nothing?’’
said Rickus as he looked at his captains and the one thing he saw now was that they were waiting for and order for a command for anything to settle this stalemate and to finally be released into the world below after seeing Rickus in action no doubt was left their leader was in top shape no doubts about the young captain, and the Deathwatch captain had paid his price already and so with that Rickus stood up ‘’Everyone, this is our crusade not anyone else’s this is our mission not anyone else’s and this is our Destiny not anyone else’s, WE FIGHT FOR THE EMPEROR!! FOR THE LION!! AND FOR THE ANGELS OF VIRTUE!! AND WE WILL NOT BE DENIED OUR DESTINY!!’’
they all stood up and screamed In unison
‘’FOR THE LION!!’’
they all left without questioning or asking anything or finding out what the chapter masters secret was however, they also did not know that many of them would not be alive to see it

Edited 7 hours ago by Diamanchez
Change color letter was white

Diamanchez · March 24

Chapter 2

Duty

The planets name was Shegorath, named after some God that used to rule there supposedly, but there was none of that here now all that was here was sand and jungles, but the last known location of the relic was on the ship that fell in the desert if the locals or no one else claim it the relic should still be there, and so the Angles of virtue decided to use drop pods instead of thunderhawks for some reason the Global map and local maps and sensors would malfunction once they entered the atmosphere but the drop pods were fine almost as if the planet itself allowed things to come in but never leave, the inside of the drop pod is loud the shaking from the walls the creaking in the metal the point of the pod breaking the atmosphere it is all happening at once Rickus looks to his left and see Primaris Williams with two other angels he turns to his right and also sees Oswin with two other angels and one in front of him for a total of with his neophyte with a metal arm in front of him.
‘’What is the plan my lord? Any idea where the relic might be? The fallen just said the necrons had taken it that’s it’’
Rickus could see the soldiers expectation of a plan but the truth is he had no plan they were just going to wander into unknown territory in the desert region of the planet with no help and as soon as they entered the atmosphere all communication will cut off, Rickus was talking to the other squads over the Vox and he heard local vox noises meaning they could speak next to each other and nearby allies they heard one Angel say
‘’Im going to try and steer to land closer to the other drop points that way I can bring reinforcements once we find the-‘’ the vox was cut off by a sudden loud noise a sound of a laser had completely erased the drop pod and the marines in it the debris flew out of control and hit other pods, Rickus included, their pod started to spin he could see the whole chamber going in circles he was holding back his vomit looking at his brothers straining to stay in their seat grabbing on to whatever they can, the claxons were sounding, flashing red lights were blinking, noise of cutting through the air was the loudest until suddenly, nothing, just silence.
The space marines awoke to the pod Being half open and cold wind coming in however it was sunny when they first launched they had been knocked out for at least hours, William was the first one up he awoke the others and helped them get out of the Pod they saw nothing but sand nothing but desert and no communication was available out of the 100 troops that had been launched only 60 had survived the initial fall a fatal blow to Rickus company and he looked over at William and said
‘’The plan is to find the relic that is all’’
and he started walking
‘’Where are you going?’’ said William.
‘’I see smoke from afar means someone is there we need to find something anything and go from there, standing still does nothing for us but make us easy prey’’ Answered Rickus.
William looked around and said ‘’Prey for what? There is nothing here but sand and wind for kilometers’’
as soon as he said that out of what seemed to be a rock was really an armored creature similar to armadillos on terra or so the books would say, this little creature however had claws sharper than any blade and armor thicker than most battle armor as he was about to latch on to Williams face a sudden bolter fire moved it away without hesitation the creature jumped again at its attacker, it was captain Oswin, he aimed carefully and just at the last second and the creature had opened his mouth he pulled the trigger making the creature swallowed the bolter bullet and explode from the inside, blood and guts covered William
‘’That’s why you are still a rookie, not because you are a primaris, but because you think nothing can harm you unless you see it, and let me tell you, if you are a son of the Lion you must always be on guard for someone or something if you wish to live that is’’ Said Oswin.
William looked at the dead body and the other 2 angels came up to him and spoke to him .
‘’It was him who spent 200 years in deathwatch of course he would know things are here and how to kill them, the first shot did not even pierce the creatures skin but the second one killed him in one shot, that’s from experience fighting different xenos’’ Said the Primaris marine.
William turned to look and saw Oswin and Rickus walking side by side talking although what they were saying eluded him, almost as if they knew someone was listening, they had turned to a private vox line just between them
‘’Why did you bring the rookie with us?’’ asked Oswin.
‘’Because he is a primaris because he needs to prove himself and I need to see it’’ Answered Rickus
Oswin just sighed, he let out a breath almost laughing.
‘’Brother, you can probably tell anyone else that, but I have been with you since the beginning, are you sure you didn’t bring him here with us so he can just follow your commands without question just to prove himself?’’ Questioned Oswin with a smile under his helmet.
Rickus turned his head while still walking and said.
‘’Well yes that’s part of it too, I cannot afford to fail not anymore, I have bet everything on this, I have accepted primaris although they might secretly follow Guiliman, I have called you back from deathwatch, I have not even informed Grand Master Azrael that we have been here for 2 years for a crusade all I told him was we are badly damaged, but the main thing is that he is a primaris and most of our troops are now primaris marines so we need to keep him alive and we need to keep following orders that way everyone else will follow orders’’ Explained Rickus.
Oswin did nothing but look forward and Rickus could hear a little smile coming from Oswin and he said.
‘’I missed working with other sons of the Lion, although deathwatch is not easy it is extremely simple and boring, and the missions are too straightforward but with us here there is always secrets is that not correct brother? For now that I am a captain I too know that since our chapter was founded all the 7 captains have always had their own personal secrets and only them and Grand Master Azrael know, I mean I now I confessed to him as well, so I know you have one too brother who is that neophyte?’’ Asked Oswin.
Rickus stopped and looked at Oswin
‘’He is no one for now brother but he can be stronger yet and could be the future of the chapter, I wished you hadn’t cut his arm though’’ Said Rickus.
Oswin laughed
‘’Brother you killed two men and blocked my strike mid way how in the world did you do that? That worries me more, and has me concerned more than anything, you are not tainted are you? brother chaplain’’ Questioned Oswin with a serious tone.
Rickus got close to Oswin and removed his skulled helmet ‘’You will not question my faith to the Lion, my loyalty to the imperium, nor the nature of my strength again, is that clear?’’ Said Rickus looking directly at the captain.
Oswin removed his helmet he was scarred part of his lips were missing and you could see his teeth thru his cheek and his left eye had been replaced by a cybernetic one, completely the opposite of the chaplains face who had no scars and long black hair with no implants
‘’The Lion you said, but not the emperor? You are a chaplain is he not supposed to be our GOD emperor?’’ Questioned Oswin.
Rickus smiled and put his helmet back on and continued walking he looked back and said.
‘’Come now then for if I he truly is a God then we are on our way to find one of Gods children, and surely that is something to be remembered, correct?’’
Oswin locked in his helmet over his head and started following Rickus and told him.
‘’You know, you were always crazy, and had crazy thoughts especially now that you are a chaplain, and saying the emperor is not a God could be seen as heresy’’ Said Oswin.
Rickus simply chuckled and continued walking. Little did they know that William had gotten closer to them to ask something but they were so into their talks that they didn’t noticed the young Primaris marine had heard everything.
After walking for a day and finding more soldiers they were now 40 Astartes but with no supplies no map and no way of finding anything the smoke only appeared at night and when trying to move in the day they would just lose more ground so this time they decided something different on Oswin’s recommendation they had gotten some armadillos and joined them all up in one place and waited for hours on hours until finally they found them, the Hyenas almost as tall as humans but with long legs and thick shoulders and a jaw that could crush bone, the plan was to follow these creatures to somewhere with more life however Captain William thought it would be better to capture the beasts and train them to carry their armor and weapons this was not authorized by Rickus but William wanted to prove himself so as the beasts were eating, William opened fire with a bunch of primaris marines bolter fire rained on the beast and were making them run towards a trap they had dug however the beasts had seen the pothole and jumped over it then William saw his opportunity running away, so he and a handful of marines ran after them shooting them and eventually in their rage and persecution they ended up killing them all, when Rickus arrived he was furious as soon as William tried to speak Rickus hit him straight in the face and broke his nose had he not be wearing his helmet William might of died on the spot. ‘’You idiot!!! Now we have nothing but a bunch of dead animals now we are surely lost and if it was not for you-‘’ William could not see from the impact and was still dazed but there came more animals but this time with people on top of them riding them.
‘’Hold your fire’’ said Rickus
The figures on the beasts were humans but savages living off the land however they had plasma weapons high tech rifles and pieces of metal wearing them like armor they were also wearing necron pieces as armor Rickus knew he was finally on the trail for the Lion.
‘’Greetings I am Rickus of the Angels Of Virtue do any of you speak gothic?’’ Asked the Chaplain.
And so one of the men spoke
‘’We do not know what gothic is but we do speak your language yes, It was taught to us by our fathers from generations ago from when the golden man came and united us but then disappeared’’ Answered the local.
Rickus looked at his men and gave signs to lower weapons and said.
‘’I understand, we do not wish to fight you nor cause any harm we actually came looking for a spaceship that crashed here 2 years ago do you know anything of it?’’ Asked Rickus.
the man looked puzzled and answered
‘’I do not know what a spaceship is however a new home did fall from the sky around 700 moons ago’’ Said the local.
the chaplain looked at William who was now fine and could think clearly
‘’700 moons that’s 2 years it adds up, but what do you mean home from the sky?’’ asked William.
The man started to point to the sky and said ‘’We have been here for a long time and most of the time we get our material or metal from caves carved of metal with weird symbols, however its not safe, there are things there that are not human nor animal something worse so we hardly go there but since time of memory whatever metal house tries to leave or floats or moves in the air gets shot down and brought down to us by a green light, I can show you the most recent one you speak of but it is the domain of a warlord now, since whoever claims it first keeps it and only the strong can claim houses, we will show you come on’’ Said the savage.
Rickus turned and could not see Oswin anywhere the lack of his presence bothered him since although they had taken fire from the savages, not one penetrated his armor Oswin should still be alive but like all Dark Angels and sons of the Lion they all have their secrets.

As the Angels arrived at what seemed to be a necron ship turned base they could all see how it was being dismantled the scavengers were using necron tech they had gotten from other crashes and salvages as they approached the gate the hard sun could be felt even inside the power armor the sand would constantly hit your armor from the wind and would be a constant background noise as long as you were outside, every step they took they left massive footprints crushing sand and whatever was in it you could see around 50 angels walking not marching for it was too hot, too condensed, too dry, to focus on keeping protocol as they prepare to enter they hear a voice from up top of the gate.
‘’Who goes there? I know not these metal men nor their symbols, identify yourselves’’ Said the Warlord.
The angels said nothing for a while and then
‘’we are here on a mission from the God emperor himself we are looking for a relic on this ship which you call home we wish only to retrieve it'’ said William the scavengers looked around and then their leader spoke.
‘’you can come into our home and trade if anyone has your relic you can negotiate a trade but other than that you cannot take anything and here power is law’’ Said the warlord.
As he lifted his hand and made a rising posture from all over the top of the gate armed people were rising and had all sorts of weapons pointing to the space marines.
‘’I count around 500 people plus more inside’’ said William
‘’Is this how you treat guests? With guns and threats?’’ said Rickus while stepping forward and 2 neophytes behind him.
The warlord took just one second one breath and then answer not realizing the situation.
‘’Well its not really a threat more of a warning you see you also have some high tech yourselves, metal man, and we know you can probably kill us but not before taking some losses yourself and I don’t see a way for you to have reinforcements’’ Said the warlord with a smile.
They were savages, but savages with experience they had dealt with other people before and had fought battles maybe not against space marines but they were experienced had good weapons and could possibly get the upper hand on the space marines if the situation was not in their favor, and the situation, time, and everything was against them and Rickus had zero patience left, he had no more mercy, no more patience, and no more words to speak he began clutching his crozium and began to reach for his bolter the sheer subtle movement let all the troops know that the fight was coming, everyone began taking the safety off their weapons began to slowly get in position and before anyone else moved the chaplain stood still as he was receiving a notification on his vox, someone was talking to him, he looked around and then back at the savages, the air was dry, sand was making their way above their ankle already, the men were nervous the astartes were anxious, the silence seemed to go on forever until William spoke.
‘’My lord if we can get them on our side we can make them join us through diplomacy and negotiation, we can save ammunition and men this way we have lost contact with everyone’’ Said Willliam.
The savages pointed their weapons, their hands dry and full of blisters, their mouths with no moisture, their lips cracked from the lack of water, and their eyes their eyes were wide open they almost all had some form of visor but they all thought the same thing, we can get more supplies more water more food.
‘’This is your last chance, either accept our terms or leave’’ Said the warlord.
The chaplain stepped back and his forces gathered near him as he spoke.
‘’We 40 warriors have not come here to just leave and we have no time for this diplomacy or negotiations however as we cannot suffer any more losses, so I will give you a choice either surrender to us or die’’ said Rickus.
William was shocked when had they lost 10 men? And now odds were even less in their favor but if they were going through with this, he would follow the chapter master to the end and so he unsheathed his two swords and turned on their crackling power field, the other marines got into their stance and prepared to fire or rush depending on the order but they knew, they all felt, that standing down would not be the next order from Chaplain Rickus
‘’We outnumber you by the hundreds metal men, I see you will choose heavy losses and the death of your men here, very well you can die now and know that once you die we will pillage your corpses feast on your flesh and use you for-‘’
What seemed like a knife shaped object but the size of a machete from jungle fighters, had penetrated the leader of the savages in the abdomen before he could scream he was muffled by what he tough was a metal rod but was in reality a finger of a space marine he felt the metal pull his cranium upward and the knife did not move as he was cut in half from the chest down and then throwing forward towards the chaplain on the outside, Rickus looked up and simply said
‘’Oswin’’
The savages did not know how such a big figure got in or what had just happened they did however out of pure instinct they reacted quickly and lifted their guns to aim however the astartes were quicker all around the upper gate and wall you saw eleven giants in black armor, trample at full speed at the savages in the walls, this was Oswin and his men who had separated as soon they had seen locals incoming and tracked the rest until they had arrived and moved into position, they had mentioned this to Rickus through vox and he was stalling just when he was about to rush in recklessly
‘’DIEE!!!’’ screamed the savages as they were mowed down like a machine trampling over small animals.
People were sent flying as the Astartes ran through them at full speed while also swinging their swords, body parts flew viscera flew, bones flew, limbs hacked apart flew, men cursing the angels as they fell in pieces flew, the shower of blood and intestines was massive enough for the back lines of the savages to notice, the Astartes did not stop, Oswin climbed down and opened the gate
‘’SHOW THEM OUR VIRTUE FOR WE ARE HIS SONS!!!’’ screamed chaplain Rickus as the space marines got into position to meet the upcoming savages.
‘’WE ARE HIS SONS!! SONS OF THE LION!!’’ they screamed back and then the hundreds of savages were met by a rain of bolt fire, unrelenting force met moving objects as the bodies flew back from the impact, bones and broken body parts flew and hit other savages in a chain effect that had them confused, the savages did not stop however they knew the astartes had to reload and so they kept rushing and biding their time, blocking and dodging however they could, once the reload began and the savages rushed William rushed out of the pack along with ten men all with swords, and proceeded to massacre the upcoming savages whatever swords or weapons they had bounced off the Astartes armor but some few of them could cause some damage this was the result of scavengers salvaging from different wreckages, however William paid this no mind he had one focus one sole focus at this moment he had committed himself to whatever order the chapter master had issued, and he would show them their virtue and here is where we come to Captain William the primaris secret, he is and addict to dangerous situations he almost gets excited when the opportunity arises for him to risk his life, but not for the thrill of it, not for the adrenaline, not for the risk and reward, and not to get stronger, he does all of this he puts his life on the line to the outmost limit to the point where his senses focus solely on one task, he does all this and more because he wants the satisfaction of being recognized, he wants chapter master Rickus and Grand master Azrael and the Lion someday to respect him to see him and see a brother not just another ‘primaris’ and is in this state of mind that captain finds himself most deadly, he weaves thru heavy weapons that look bulky he dodges the lances and spears coming for him, and he parries the many weak and feeble attacks coming for him, he does this until he is deep in within the enemies troops far from his men, and it is here that he loses himself he turns off his vox, no orders can be heard no brother no leader no chapter master no primarch nothing it is just him his two swords and a wall around him a wall that can be cut, that can be carved, that can bleed.
He strides back where he came from slashing all those he had parried before they could know what’s happening, their heads are already on the floor ten men cut in seconds, he continues, he no longer parries, he no longer dodges, he no longer thinks of defense, he strikes and pierces one and two behind that one he then sees an attack coming and swings his left hand, cutting the weapon and the attacker at the same time he pulls back his other sword and spins with both of them at stretched out like a tornado he cuts at least twenty men, who won’t get up anymore.
He stops, stomps through the injured on the floor as he leaves puddles of blood and organs he rushes a mob and crashes shoulder first separating them and killing most he then sees savages preparing bolter fire he picks up five bodies of savages and rushes the firing line as they open fire and the bodies begin to fall apart in his hand, he draws his swords again jumps as high and far as he can, they shoot, but he dodges and parries in the air but some still get him, however by the time he drops it is too late he has already slaughtered them all with his sword killing four men in one swing that’s how fast and powerful he swung his sword it was not about his power or length of the sword at the point, it was all about the technique this young space marine had spent all his life training he had killed over one hundred savages himself .
‘’Wow, that boy has a virtue for slaughter and I thought I had seen it all with the deathwatch’’ said Oswin.
But still more came out from the fallen spaceship it seemed almost a hive city lived there, as William prepared himself and was about to be rushed he started receiving support fire from Oswin and his squad on the walls but it would only buy a couple of seconds and Williams focus had vanished he needed to see what was going on he didn’t want to be known as just a berserker, he thought of going back but before he could his squad along with Rickus and the rest were on him
‘’Shield line!!!’’ screamed the chaplain
Out of all them ten had shields with Rickus included, they all bared down and embraced the attack while they did so the other marines opened fire now they had fire from the bottom and top the savages were getting erased by the hundreds by the bolter fire and their guns only few worked against Astartes armor and against shields even less, when it was time to reload the savages believed it was their chance and so with the last of their troops the savages prepared their weapons. The savages gritted their teeth and pressed the ground they were running on as hard as they could, they felt their legs hurting some nails broke, some their legs gave out, but every single savage put their weight and strength and energy to rush and open the shield wall the front lines of savages prepare for impact and brace themselves they close their eyes and run straight through the shields or so they thought
‘’We should have crashed into the shields by now’’ some of them thought.
Yet they kept running for a few more seconds before realizing the shield line had been opened on purpose more than half of the savages had poured through to the back line of the Angels of virtue then the shield wall closed again and pushed back the other hundreds of savages coming in and threw their shields at them.
‘’Why?’’ thought the savage,
Before looking up and the massive warriors had thrown their shield to draw their bolters they had not fired a single clip only defended now ten extra guns bared down on them and opened fire with no mercy while the rest turned around and pointed at the ones that had been let trough
‘’leave none alive’’ said Rickus
And so lines of red and orange flame raced across the battlefield both from Oswins team up top and Rickus on the ground like all Dark Angels they fought secretively and had faked that they were going to reload to bait the savages to come In now faced with fire from up close no chance of blocking or dodging they tired to keep running to try and get away further back but all they were met with was captain William and death.
After the battle William seemed the most troubled they had slaughtered almost close to one thousand savages and they had lost four Astartes but still acceptable but the captain was not upset about this but about the bodies some were young some were too young and they had weapons yes and they fired yes but the manner to which everything was handled did not sit well with the captain.
Oswin and Rickus were near a fire while the rest cleaned up and scanned for the relic William approached them and slowly to catch what they were saying.
‘’You didn’t use your magic tricks today brother chaplain, is not something you can do whenever you like?’’ Said Oswin.
Rickus seemed to chuckle a bit before answering
‘’Ha! talking to you always brings me nostalgia brother, when you would purposely make me mad to reveal secrets, what time those were right? Captain of shadow’’ Said Rickus.
Oswin seemed annoyed that his question had been avoided but for now he would wait to discover the secret of the Chapter master.
‘’if you would like to talk about Nostalgia, the boy today moved and fought and killed like old chapter master Godfrey did, I honestly thought I would ever see someone fight with two swords like him, and then again I was proven wrong today’’ Said Oswin.
Rickus moved away forward from the fire away from Oswin and even farther from William
‘’yes, our primaris brother fought well today but I do believe we should not let this get to his head for there is much work to be done, or are you already satisfied brother Primaris?’’
As he looked back directly at where William was hiding behind a rock, he had been caught like a kid who gets caught doing something they know they aren’t supposed to do, he got up from the rock and walked over to them
‘’How lon-‘’
he was cut off by the chaplain
‘’Always’’ Rickus said.
‘’Now speak or ask or report whatever it is you came here to do, or did you by any chance expect a reward? A ceremony? Laurels for you? This was your first battle as a son of the Lion and you did well however this is only the beginning I need you focused’’ Said The chapter master.
The young space marine took off his helmet and got in Rickus face.
‘’Focused for what? Do you have a plan? I mean beside slaughtering children and murdering hundreds because you don’t have time, time for what? You are just desperate and making desperate choices if Captain Oswin had not opened the gate we would have lost more than 4 men and you know this’’ Said William angrily.
The chaplain looked over at Oswin and nodded then Oswin left and took the bodyguards that were there now it was just the chaplain and primaris now all alone around a fire. Surrounded by cold dark air of the desert almost freezing cold you could see your breath and feel your fingers go numb you feel the stone and sand as cold as frozen glass and in this setting the old and the new would settle their differences or only one would be left here to lead.
‘’Ah, finally it took 2 years and some deaths but you finally snapped at me, you had been following orders like a good soldier until now I wonder what you will do next? Fight me? Kill me? What is your plan Brother Primaris?’’ Asked Rickus.
William took a deep breath and said
‘’Why? Just tell me why it would have been more beneficial to have them on our side is it because you don’t believe in the emperor? Is it because you don’t view him as a God? Is it because it is all a battle a war a campaign to you?’’ Asked William.
The chaplain now seemed upset from the claim about the emperor but first things had to be addressed in order.
‘’First of all, these people were never going to be allies they are too uncivilized, you do not see this since all you think about is battle, I saw how you threw yourself at them out there and butchered them no one does that without losing themselves to the slaughter, after you deal with people for long as I have you can tell which ones work and which ones don’t, and these people just saw us as supplies would have probably attacked us once we were on the inside, and captain Oswin had revealed that he tortured some of them and revealed that it was their people that woke up or activated the cannons that shoot everything out of the sky so someone already woke up necrons, it seems that means or second team is walking into a necron tomb with no help and we have no time we need to find the relic and help them’’ Said the Chaplain.
The young space marine tried to answer back but before he could he was interrupted by the now what seemed to be a huge dark figure in front of him it took him a second to process what was happening in just the blink of an eye the Chaplain who although was in front of him was not right in his face was now right in front of his eyes he could smell him he could feel the heat from him the anger the power emitting from him was almost nerve shattering, the only thing that kept William from backing away was the fact the his Dark Angel blood was intrigued it wanted to know it wanted to understand how? How did this massive figure cover the distance and didn’t make noise and not even foot prints in the sand.
William saw in the ground where the chaplain had been standing and then there were no footsteps on the sand and no footsteps between them the steps where he stood and where he now stands had an empty space between them, almost as if he jumped and then landed in front of William but could such a thing be possible? Someone jumping and landing without making noise? Without a veteran noticing? The only thing that interrupted his thought process was the now furious chaplain gripping his crozium radiating with power energy.
‘’ I will grant you mercy just on the regard that you had the valor to finally question me after years of putting up with us, however if you ever so much as doubt my faith in the Emperor of Mankind on The light of terra The lord of Humankind the Genefather of all of us and creator of the Imperium again, I will execute you on the spot I am a chaplain Boy, be careful to who you say such things, are we clear? Captain primaris’’ Said Rickus.
William gulped his saliva, he had seen Rickus and how strong and serious and overall how crazy and obsessed he was with finding the Lion he would not hesitate to kill him, yet one thing piqued the young space marines curiosity something if spoken it might end him, but he had to ask and he did not know what had pushed him to say it.
‘’Out of everything you called him, I noticed you did not once call him GOD, my lord’’
The chaplain had no answer for a couple of seconds considering whether to kill the primaris on the spot but instead opted for a different approach.
‘’We all know who leads us and who we owe everything to I spent fifty years burning the Emperors deeds in my memory, everything from the great crusade until now, and let me tell you he has done things mortals like us could never dream of achieving, however he is no God and I tell you this now I believe and follow him without doubt but to be a God one would have to perform miracles overcome certain odds lead us to victory or win massive wars we have no way of winning from what I have recorded from the Emperor and my own personal experience of six hundred years of battle, battles have been won with preparation with courage and with duty, if everyone knows what role to play and plays it perfectly then we win even the emperor when he has to play his role of GOD but in my eyes a God is someone who can make something out of nothing who can turn around everything in just one action and in this grimdark time we live in I believe we have not seen such a miracle, so to make it clear I adore and look up to the emperor like no one and I would have no one question that, not even my brothers, however I did cheat to get this position since only a chaplain can be the chapter master of the angels of virtue so I did say the emperor is a God and trust me it was hard to hide it from the chaplain council, but I need to lead this chapter I need to look for this relic I need to find the Lion’’ Said Rickus in an impatient tone while looking directly at William.
For all the information all the questions and everything he had going on in his mind captain Williams could only say on thing.
‘’I don’t understand’’ Said William.
The chaplain stepped back from him and nodded and said.
‘’Then you are finally starting to become one of us, to not understand it, to want to learn, to learn is to keep secret, it is in our geneseed boy’’ Said Rickus.
The primaris nodded and spoke again
‘’that I do understand, what I don’t understand is why if you have the idea that the second team might be attacked and outnumbered why not go to them? We need to help them now we now where they landed based off this fallen spaceship let us go now and save them we can come back from the relic later’’ Said William.
As soon as he said that some dust had flown into his eyes the primaris marine had only blinked for a fraction of a second he had closed his eyes and before he noticed once again the chaplain was gone, this time behind him, once again no noise, no smell, nothing, until the last second the chaplain picked him up by the back of the head and William felt anger, power, and strength he believed was not human, so much rage to be felt just from a grab was not normal, he knew he could not beat the chaplain and to fight would mean death and just as he was planning on how to escape and flee Rickus grunted and threw him aside.
‘’Finding that relic is something I’ve spent centuries thinking about boy, trust me when I say I will do anything to get it’’ Said Rickus now in an angry tone.
William stood up dusted himself off and while Rickus was preparing to fight Williams was preparing to leave.
‘’Sorry my Lord but I cannot in good faith abandon my brothers to die while we search for something that might or might not be here’’ Said William.
Rickus visors eyes were glowing red almost as if the helmet itself was angry.
‘’You dare disobey an order? Will you be branded a heretic? Will you take the tittle of fallen now? The first primaris fallen? Remember your Duty boy’’ Said Rickus.
William picked up his helmet and locked it in his head.
‘’My duty is to my brothers not to some relic’’ Said William.
Before Rickus could say anything else, William turned to try to run but out of the shadows of some rocks Oswin emerged he had left, circled around and crawled in the shadows while making his armor invisible.
‘’Stop there Primaris, unless you really want to die’’ Said the captain to William.
Oswin saw no intention of stopping from William who had now built up a lot of speed, his boots were creaking his armor was showing sparks from the metal grinding against each other, he pulled out his bolter and started firing but at the feet of The captain of the shadow he wanted him to move out of the way to the side so he could keep running but the veteran Oswin instead jumped up directly above William he slashed with his sword and William in a split second sheathed his gun and parried the blade that was coming from above with his own blade as Oswin’s body began to fall in front of William he was punched by the primaris captain and William noticed that Oswin had let go of his weapon and now had fully hugged the arm that had punched him.
‘’Almost’’ said William.
He too had dropped his sword and had already reached his bolter he pointed the gun at Oswin’s stomach and opened fire, the captain of shadow had no option but let go and move and barely dodged the point blank bolter fire he fell on his back from the momentum he got up immediately already seeing William running he chased but before he could do so he could hear a metal ‘click’ under him a grenade had been left and Oswin expecting the worst jumped back waiting for the burning fire that would claim his life, and melt his skin for the shrapnel to penetrate his skin all the way to his organs, however after he jumped and landed with no pain he had noticed the grenade had been a smoke grenade and William was nowhere to be found.
‘’he has gone to help squad two with the necrons’’ Said Oswin as he picked up his sword and sheathed it.
‘’That was one of my grenades he took it while we were fighting, not bad, do you want me to bring him back?’’ Asked Oswin.
Rickus stared long and quietly at the direction of the necron tomb.
‘’No, we have more important things to deal with for now he is still one of us, a bit lost but still one of us for now’’ Said Rickus as they headed back for camp.
The next morning everyone wondered where the hero of the last battle was why was captain William not around? ‘’Everyone listen up’’ Said chaplain Rickus ‘’We are not sure how many threats oppose however if a necron tomb world is awakening we have send our brother to die and so captain William our bravest was sent to help and reinforce them rejoice for with him as their back up they are sure to prevail and for us we will now make this a temporary base and go deeper into the wreckage to find the relic I believe captains Williams Virtues would be better off with our brother so lets hear it for him and for our brothers, FOR THE LION!!’’
everyone saluted and screamed in unison
‘’FOR THE LION!!’’
Oswin looks over at Rickus and nods they both join and Oswin asks.
‘’So you do know that the relic is down there right? You are not just going to lead us in a wild chase through kilometers of abandoned ship with necrons and no reinforcements right?’’ Asked Oswin concerned.
Rickus did not look at his brother, but at the ship and simply said
‘’The God emperor will provide’’

Diamanchez · March 25

Chapter 3
Unity

Hive cities are humongous structures, housing billions of people if not more in some occasions, however that’s when they are built by the great imperium, in this death world what passes for a hive city would be a fallen necron ship the bigger they are the more people live in them the bigger the hive city one would say.
The angels have discovered a large hive city kilometers away from the necron ship that crashed with the relic, Librarian Geoffrey and Apothecary Manus have been tasked with searching the area and questioning its people and if need be use whatever mean necessary for compliance, the drop pods all dropped through the wind and then landed near a jungle area although a ‘death’ world it does not mean life does not grow here, its just means there is more death than life and in this jungle like area, these people have made their home inside a massive xenos ship all one hundred space marines made it to the ground.
The air was humid, the trees were long and barely let any light through, the pods however cleared some when landing, as the space marines get out of the pods some get tangled with vines others started sinking into swamp pits others were attacked by wildlife and opened fire causing even more beasts to come while not a big threat one thing was clear, this place was no place for any human being to be or they would be hunted immediately almost as if the jungle itself was protecting the xenos ship with people there and then almost in an instant as soon as it appeared it disappeared.
A bolt of lightning flashed across the jungle and hit multiple beasts in a row almost as if it had a mind of its own it killed these huge canine beasts in an instant.
‘’Get yourself together men! we are Astartes and we do not fail, we do not surrender, and we will not lose to some jungle’’
Said librarian Geoffrey.
‘’Form a perimeter get a safe zone going lets send Two teams of ten men to explore and bring back info and I want all this done within the hour, is that clear men?!?!’’ Said Geoffrey.
all space marines stopped for a second.
‘’Yes brother librarian’’ said one.
‘’Yes my lord’’ answered another.
‘’For the lion!’’ shouted one.
These were all mainly primaris and had never worked with a psyker before, they knew of them they studied them some even saw them fight but non had ever had a librarian in their team and were nervous on how to address him and even more nervous to ask him on how to address him, before the Librarian could answer another voice was heard.
‘’You may call him captain while we are on missions and brother librarian or my lord when we are in the ship’’
said the warrior with white armor a bolter pistol and the apothecary sign.
‘’Brother Manus’’ said one of the primaris.
They were all more at peace with him since he is also in charge of the gene seed he was taught how to make the new space marines and so he spend a lot of time with them in these past two years.
‘’It seems you make them nervous, brother Geoffrey’’ said manus with a smile.
However the librarian did not smile.
‘’Manus if you have seen what I have you would not be smiling for believe me apothecary you will have much work to do before this crusade is over’’ Said the librarian.
Manus looked around and saw all the marines following orders to the letter he let out a quick sigh of air.
‘’how many will we lose?’’ Asked Manus.
The librarian started walking towards the squad that was having the most trouble and from his hand lightning appeared, killing the beasts on the spot saving the marines and with his other hand a staff was held he hit the ground and turned to the apothecary.
‘’Too many’’ Answered Geoffrey.
As he continued to walk towards more marines and assist,
Brother manus was treating wounded soldiers and also providing cover fire for retreating squads it took them all approximately an hour to get the perimeter going just like the librarian had requested however none of the two squads for scouting had returned, twenty space marines, just lost with no answer no communication then in their self-made base all the Astartes stood in a circle taking turns patrolling or guarding cargo and the wounded.
‘’I will need to see what going on before sending out another recon team, if we do not act carefully we will lose all our men, Brother manus cover me while I concentrate’’ Said the Librarian.
Brother Geofrey had the abnormal gift to see the future but only in shards, in pieces, in inconsistent information, however they have helped the chapter in the past and doing so now is the only thing to do before sending out more men but this a moment of extreme vulnerability since he so concentrated in the future he cannot see anything before him, his eyes shine electricity gushing all around him he struggled to stay standing he gripped his staff and fell to one knee then the lightning was gone and his eyes were back to normal but he was breathing hard and tired Manus rushed over to apply a battle stim and ease his pain
‘’What did you see brother Geoffrey? Are the men dead? Or just lost?’’ Asked Manus.
The librarian stood up leaning on the apothecary’s shoulder and spoke.
‘’They come back to us, but yet they don’t, tell the men to be careful there is something here in this jungle that we don’t understand yet and something is messing with my psyker senses I must take a minute’’ Said Geoffrey leaning up against a tree tired.
The apothecary helped him sit.
‘’Brother you will be fine I assure the emperor will not let you suffer this if not for a reason, him granting you this power is proof of it’’ Said Manus.
The librarian rolled his eyes.
‘’Manus please, not now not while I feel like this, I understand after you saw a miracle with the sororitas you have been ‘enlightened’ but now we need to focus on the mission and-‘’ he was cut off by Manus who stood up and spoke.
‘’Speaking of the God Emperor is always correct brother no matter the time and place especially when we are need’’ Said apothecary Manus.
He looked over and saw all twenty space marines returning, the weird part was that they had left in opposite directions and should not be coming back from the same direction all together.
‘’And it seems we are in dire need from him at the moment’’ Finished Manus.
As he reached for his bolter pistol he saw the guards at the camp asking for the signal from the recon team yet all the team did was salute and not speak, the moment grew tense, there was no sound coming from their armors, there was no breathing being heard, the jungle was unusually quiet not a single animal or bird could be heard, only the steps of twenty Astartes walking a little bit quicker, each time you would hear metal slam faster and louder towards the base, the guards started to feel anxious at the unknown only one answer is clear for them, Violence.
‘’Stop, identify yourselves or we will open fire!’’ Said one of the primaris guarding the entrance.
The twenty quiet Astartes did not stop, and seeing this as a threat the space marine lifted his bolter rifle and was hesitant to shoot since these were his brothers, they had no taint or chaos or any visible wounds, and they were stranded on a planet with no reinforcements they needed to save as many lives and ammunitions as possible but this second of hesitation is was enough.
‘’Last warning or ill-‘’ Tried to finish the Primaris guard.
He was cut off by a bolter round to the head in this universe its called a round just because the Astartes is so massive that to them it does seem like a regular round however in closer inspection it’s a small missile that explodes on impact and is designed for ultimate damage, and even with Astartes armor a well placed shot in the visor area or in the neck would cause severe damage and immediate death, as in this case where the head completely exploded from the impact of the round, and as the rest of the guards realize what’s going on they look over at the body falling headless, blood spurting where the spine reaches the head and falls on its knees forward.
The primaris angels now angry turn to face their once called brothers, only to be met with more bolter fire and close up chainswords, the guards were slaughtered caught by surprise and killed with no hesitation and the twenty space marines were still moving, but they had wounds now, they had bolter fire rip apart some body parts, and would still continue to fight almost as if possessed, but none of them screamed, none of them spoke, almost as they couldn’t, as the twenty undead marines approached the center of the camp where brother Geoffrey is resting, they see a small tent and all twenty surround it, and open fire thinking there is someone there however once the dust settles there is nothing there.
All the space marines on Manus’s orders had climbed up the trees and left the equipment behind only took the wounded up there.
‘’I suggest you stop, I would rather not kill you and study your bodies afterwards, but dead men don’t talk too well so put your weapons down and we will have a nice long talk on how it is that you come to betray your brothers’’ Said Manus looking down on them from trees.
The attackers wounded and bleeding still did not answer they did however for the first time demonstrate some form of intelligence and put their weapons down.
‘’Hmph, very well then I guess no studying your guys dead bodies yet’’ Said Manus as he stopped aiming his pistol at the marines,
As he ordered the space marines to get down and capture the traitors he ordered some to stay on top to guard Brother Geofrey.
Twenty space marines had killed around another twenty and now Manus was down to sixty men he went down with forty and left twenty up top to guard, however before coming down to meet the traitors Geofrey in between words spoke.
‘’Be careful brothers’’ Said Geoffrey struggling to speak from the exhaustion.
Manus nodded and spoke as he was going down to the ground.
‘’Don’t worry brother, they already put their weapons down now we will just take this slow and easy and take no unnecessary risks’’ Finished Manus.
As the marines drop from the trees and get to the ground they start encircling the traitors slowly but surely, while approaching them the circle became smaller and smaller until almost reaching the traitors, guns drawn and aimed any false movement as if any sudden movements were felt the result would be a rain of bolter fire and death.
‘’No brother, be careful be careful with the Beasts’’ said librarian Geofrey in between breaths.
One space marine with the librarian tried to shout out to Manus what the librarian had said but it was too late.
From the back of the trees from the shadows from behind rocks almost as if they were stalking them or hunting them or almost as if the undead Astartes and beasts were working together.
The ones who had surrounded the undead space marine were now surrounded by beast and now they had enemies in front of them, and behind them.
Sure the beasts could not penetrate Astartes armor, but they could move their arms and make them fumble their weapons , they could tackle them and get them off balance, the Astartes out of pure instinct started shooting bolter rounds into the beasts.
‘’No, wait don’t shoot the beasts shoo the-‘’ Tried to warn the librarian from the trees.
It was too late, a bolter round from the ground broke the silence, aiming at the recovering librarian and it had impacted his shoulder.
And now the traitor marines had full sight of their target and Angels of virtue were caught in between bolter fire and beasts fangs, it was a trap, almost as if the traitors and beasts were working together, brother Manus could hold his own even with fatigue or injuries of any kind, but the primaris were struggling.
Manus was a veteran, he was slashing beasts left and right with his chainsword and providing cover fire with his bolter pistol he was gathering survivors he was shooting and backing up slowly wanting to have trees on his back not open space for other enemies to appear.
One undead marine approached and three shots met him one in the left hand, then left elbow, and then left shoulder with no left arm and no weapon the marine tried to punch Manus, only to be met with a chainsword that the marine tried to block, he pulled back his punch, but it was too late, the chainsword met the right shoulder guard and sparks scattered everywhere, the undead marine tried to move the sword but brother Mans holstered his gun and used both hands to push down the chain blade until it pierced the clavicle and made its way out of the left hip of the marine.
Seeing viscera and guts spill from it, Apothecary Manus saw something inside the marine, he had not seen this in all his years as an apothecary, he reached in and as the body fell in two pieces, Manus pulled out the beating heart, and a parasite of some sort was attached to it as he crushed the heart the dead marine even cut in half that was still moving finally stopped.
‘’Shoot their limbs off so they don’t have any means of attacking us then finish them by dealing a killing blow to the heart!!’’ shouted Manus.
The marines listened and aimed true, executing most undead marines and the beasts, but the losses were enormous for the crusade.
As everything was clearing up and everyone seemed to have chased away the beasts and finish off the undead marines they started to look around for even if they had won something was still missing something was still hunting them
‘’Together now!!’’ called out manus as all soldiers rallied to his position he spoke ‘’There is something here still, most likely what was controlling our brothers, they are dead already however their hearts were infected by a parasite that can control them, but they no longer have will, they are no longer our brothers’’ Said the Apothecary.
They noticed something strange something was moving, sneaking, hunting, watching, learning, understanding and overall it was planning.
At the same time brother Geofrey began to get up and told his men to start moving down but they could see he was still tired and exhausted.
‘’Captain you cannot move not in your state’’ said a primaris guarding him.
The librarian got up with the help of his staff.
‘’You fool, if you don’t want to lose our apothecary I suggest you throw me down if you have to, just get me near him’’
The primaris marines looked at each other and nodded and started lowering the librarian.
‘’Anything moves and you wait, we don’t want to shoot randomly, we are dealing with low munition already, also the sun is going down and the harder it is to see the more we will miss, but do not worry, The God emperor protects’’ Said Manus to the primaris marines around him.
As he finished speaking behind them where the initial battle had started and the gate had been breached the dead space marines guards who had been caught off guard now started rising again walking and even the headless marine stood up
‘’Behind us!!’’ yelled a space marine.
Manus and everyone turned and before the undead marines could start shooting The apothecary and their team had already opened fire.
‘’One line!!!’’ screamed Manus.
And all space marines spread out from a circle to a line and manus at the back getting wounded men behind the line ‘’Keep up we are almost done’’ Said Manus.
The apothecary had seen now that the sun was going down, that the people of this planet were close by, he could see the fire rising from the wreckage of a Xenos ship, if they could get there the locals would be forced to help.
‘’Now united we will march towards the smoke we shall get there and make our stand and the God Emperor will provide us with victory!!!’’ Shouted Manus.
Everyone shouted back.
‘’For the Emperor!!’’ Said the primaris marines.
As manus drew breath and was about to yell again and charge forward with his brothers he felt his body unable to move for some reason, and he could not breathe properly as he looked down he could see the reason.
‘’Ah, I see, no wonder we couldn’t find you’’ Said Manus as blood came from his mouth.
He saw what seemed like a transparent rod of metal piercing him from his lower back making his way up his chest and splitting it open and piercing his heart.
‘’Noooooo!!!!!’’ screamed the primaris.
As they saw their beloved apothecary being lifted up by what seems to be a dog like figure but with the ability to stand in two legs and claws instead of paws in his upper limbs, its face was the shape of a cat but the mouth of a canine wolf, and its ears were long like a bats but its eyes were wide open wider than anything else and its pupils almost entirely filled its eye sockets leaving no white to be seen, bolter round after bolter round was shot but the beast dropped the apothecary and turned invisible however the blood on its tail from the attack was still there.
It was a long tail with a stinger like a bug at the tip of it surely that’s how it had implanted its parasite on the dead bodies, and how the marines from the entrance had come back to life without no one noticing since it was invisible, but the beast was massive standing over ten feet tall yet moved quicker than anything else, the marines shot but failed as the beast jumped and disappeared into the sky due to the moon, the shadows, and the invisibility.
And as it landed it was about to strike at the unknown marines when in a blink of an eye a lightning bolt jolted across the field from the trees, brother Geofrey had seen enough and although he was not in peak form he was no going to let his brothers die.
He dropped and rushed the beast on his left hand the massive power fist struck at the stunned beasts face, blood and teeth and fangs flew out however from the blow the beast spined in a one hundred and eighty degree angle and with full momentum hit the librarian with its tail sending him flying several feet and crashed into the trees.
As he was getting back up the beast pounced on him from above clawing and biting and thrashing above the librarian, Geofrey with no option left channeled all his warp energy and focused it on himself causing a wave of psyker energy to erupt from him and burn the beast and sent it flying this left Geoffrey who was already tired kneeling and looked up while holding his staff and saw the beast coming for him he could feel its anger he could feel this beast had some intellect and the punch and the burnt skin this space marine had caused it vexed it to the point where it no longer cared about anything else but killing the armored man in front of it.
‘’Well come on then, we don’t got all day’’ Said Geoffrey as he spat blood and prepared.
As he barely lifted his power fist signaling the beast to come it rushed him but in its blind rage it could not see it, could not feel it, could not react in time, as his left eye looked over his left shoulder, he saw spikes moving a multiple times per second, it saw what was a chainsword, coming down on its neck it could not react on time it could not dodge in time it could not defend in time, all it could do was see and follow the sword with its eye and saw there a warrior in white armor with its left shoulder injured and its chest wounded spilling blood swinging down the sword with two hands and forcing the chainsword on its neck as he pushed down and blood and bones fell he completely decapitated the beast.
A foul shriek of noise was heard as one would hear with a sewer rat in the slumps of a hive city but on a large scale and then finally, silence.
‘’Are you alive brother Geofrey?’’ asked Manus.
‘’Just a couple of broken bones and some injuries nothing compared to yours though, are you alive brother Manus?’’ Asked the Librarian in a joking tone.
The apothecary lifted his chainsword over his shoulder and breathed and smiled.
‘’Yes Brother, for luckily the God Emperor has blessed us with two hearts and piercing one will not be the end of me at least not now while the God Emperor has need of me’’ Said Manus with a slight smile.
He offered his hand to the librarian who took it and stood up. ‘’Now what?’’ asked Manus.
And as he did in their helmets and visors started flashing with life signals all over them surrounded.
‘’I guess we are about to find out’’ said Geofrey, as they prepared to make a last stand.
They noticed however not beasts or undead marines but small human-like figures coming out from the trees and woods of the jungle they spoke full gothic.
‘’Are you with the the golden God?’’ Asked the local.
Manus and Geofrey looked at each other and were thinking whether to execute him as a heretic or talk but given the situation they decided to talk.
‘’We do not know who this golden God is but we serve the God Emperor of mankind and are on this planet on a holy mission from him’’ said Manus.
The humans now more than noticeable now started coming out one by one and eventually one showed him a data slate ‘’this is our Golden God’’ Said the civilian.
The image it was a human with power armor but not a space marine in golden armor and a bolter pistol and power sword in each hand this was the legendary Lord Macharius, who had once conquered a lot of the halo stars hundreds of years ago.
‘’He also serves our God Emperor’’ said manus and showed them a slate who Macharius was and the imperium the locals now feeling more safe spoke.
‘’it was said that he and his followers would return and save us, and as you have killed our long hated demon you are our saviors’’ Said the leader of the locals.
The Angels looked at each other and then asked the local. ‘’This thing? This was your demon? Just this one or is there more?’’ Asked Manus.
The local shrugged and answered with a slight smile.
‘’Just one, one is all it took to feed on us and drive us to fear for hundreds of years it was long ago a ship landed here and we made it our home and this was in the ship was this beast it awoke but after years of fighting our ancestors put on a stasis field again however a couple of years ago some of us went to gather salvage from a ship and we found what we thought was a weapon or armor of some sort but as we took it an alarm sounded and by the time we returned this thing had awoken and attacked us killed most of us and then hunted us in these forest with our dead people for two years we had actually just launched a campaign against him and killed most of his stock but then we saw the fighting and here we are’’ Said the civilian looking up at the Dark Angels.
Before the man could continue both the Apothecary and Geofrey got really close to the local and asked.
‘’Where is this weapon or armor you found?’’ Asked Geoffrey.
The local could sense the tone had changed and these giant men only had one thing on their mind, seeing their wounds and all the death the body the smell of the intestines the :cuss: and piss from the animals he did not want to fight these people.
‘’it’s in our city come and we will show it to you’’ Said the local.
The space marines nodded.
‘’Head count!!!’’ yelled manus.
And after a couple of hours of gathering gene seed from fallen brothers and salvaging all they could they left.
‘’How many are left?’’ asked the librarian.
‘’With us two included out of the one hundred that originally came only 30 are operational and 20 are injured’’ Answered Manus.
They both turned forward and saw the city entrance to upside down ship where it crashed it almost seemed like the ship was flying out of the sand rather than being dug in as the sun started to rise once again the marines walked in.
Everyone in the city had their eyes on them, no one had ever seen space marines before, and they were in awe, they had no words only bowed their heads.
After getting to the main castle and building most space marines were sent to the med-bay they had there from another salvaged Astartes ship luckily it was enough to treat them and rest but meanwhile Apothecary Manus and Librarian Geoffrey headed to the main vault deep in the city with the local leader.
‘’Are you going to be ok with just one heart?’’ asked the librarian.
‘’Sure I am, the God emperor still has work for me, otherwise the beast would have pierced both hearts wouldn’t you agree?’’ Said Manus smiling as he had won a contest proud to be a part of the God Emperor’s plan.
The librarian nodded sideways and then spoke.
‘’I’m not sure if it was the God Emperor or the fact that the beast was used to fighting and killing things with only one heart but either way I’m glad you are still with us brother’’ Said Librarian Geoffrey.
The apothecary nodded back an answered.
‘’As am I brother, and I’m proud of our primaris brothers, they followed orders and proved that through unity the God Emperor will always reward us’’ Finished Manus.
As they were arriving the doors were massive, and the room could house and entire block of people but it was all empty, all but one thing in the middle, one simple thing as they got closer they could see it on the pedestal above a pillow protected by a glass case.
‘’Is that what I think it is brother Geoffrey?’’ Asked Manus in disbelieve.
The librarian tried immediately to use his vox to contact someone but the long distance radio signals were still turned off he then hit the floor with his staff in anger for not being able to tell Rickus about this.
‘’it is brother, it is what this whole chapter was created for, it is our destiny’’ Said Geoffrey with a Grimm tone, knowing now what was truly at stake.

Diamanchez · March 26

Chapter 4
Progress

The final team to land, since the location was the farthest, was the one in charge of looking any sign of Necron activity, they took days to land since first the ship had to get into position and wait for the right time since the planets weather and the necron defense system was always a hazard for the operation.
Nevertheless, late by a couple of days the team had landed and a full one hundred space marines led by the tech-marine Brother Mikhail And Sword champion veteran Bernard and they had all landed at the peak of the icy mountain, the coldness could not be felt through the armor but the gusts of wind would pick up snow and throw it on the space marines faces and armor.
‘’So what do you think brother, is this planet a necron tomb world or not?’’ Asked Bernard.
The other marine was crouching, running analysis on the mountain side, giving his back to Brother Bernard and the tech marine lost in his work scanning the mountain range spoke almost in a mumble noise.
‘’I don’t know I mean I’m pretty sure that it is but I have yet to find any evidence, the main reason we are here in the first place its because there is nothing here but like nothing, no wild animals no vegetation nothing almost as if on purpose’’ Said tech marine Mikhail as he stopped and saw that his visor sensors were glowing and blinking.
‘’Well brother here is the answer, and yes there is necrons here and yes they are waking up and yes they are a lot of them, any more questions or can I continue figuring out the entrance without disturbance please?’’ Said Mikhail annoyed to be interrupted from his work.
Bernard was quite for just one second and then asked.
‘’Do you know if these necrons which there’s is a lot of are covered in mutilated flesh from humans and covered in viscera and skin with dried shriveled faces on their heads?’’ Asked Bernard.
Brother Mikhail almost turned to hit Bernard for making jokes while he was working.
‘’By the throne would you please let me-‘’ Tried to finish Mikhail.
As he stood up and was speaking he turned around and saw coming from the ground hundreds of Necrons soldiers rising with human skin on them an dried blood all over their bodies just as Bernard had described them, they looked at each other knew they found their answer and their entrance Bernard began smiling before answering as to make another joke but was cut off by Mikhail.
‘’Just shut up, I know that there is a lot of them, I know that they are awake, I know that they are coming, anything else?’’ Bernard put his helmet on lifted his shield and sword.
‘’Yeah, make sure you don’t get in the way of my sword, tech-marine’’ Said Bernard as he ran to meet the enemies with no hesitation.
He rushed forward while Mikhail stood back and lifted his bolter rifle and aimed at the necrons that were coming for Bernard.
He opened the way and the warrior arrived to cut the necrons in one stroke each he would block and cut block and cut block and cut it was like he himself was a machine for battle, he would see the Xenos try to block and he would crush their blocking hand with his sword if they were to try and dodge he would crush them with his shield.
The necrons however, were beginning to adapt and little by little Brother Bernard was blocking more than attacking still not suffering any injury but could not counter attack properly then Mikhail turned his bolter rifle to automatic and opened fire and yelled.
‘’Make sure you don’t get in the way of my gun’’ Yelled Mikahil from several dozen feet behind.
Bernard looked back saw what was coming and with his sword and shield spined to knock all upcoming necrons coming his way and then ducked and put his shield over his back he was shot at by bolter fire but his shield blocked but as for the necrons, they were not so lucky, and they were wiped out.
‘’You shot me’’ said Bernard.
‘’You like jokes don’t you? That’s one for you, what’s a bigger joke than being killed by friendly fire?’’ Said Mikhail with a feint smile under his helm.
Bernard got up to his face then lifted his head up and laughed.
‘’HAHAHA I guess you are right brother that is a joke, even if it is a bad one don’t worry I doubt your puny gun would have done anything to me, its too bad it didn’t even scratch my shield, I guess we have no way to tell this story and have someone believe us right? Oh well, maybe some other time you will have a stronger gun’’ Said Bernard smiling.
These were veterans of over four hundred years fighting side by side, death was not a factor nor did it scare them, they only laughed at it.
The tech marine took this as offense, for insulting tech or weapons to a tech marine was almost heresy but he had started this and could not lose his cool.
‘’if I remember you were already shielding yourself like a turtle so all I did was clear the targets around you its not like I aimed at you or you puny shield’’ Replied Mikhail.
These two brothers had know each other for hundreds of years and would die for each other but this also lead to this dark relationship between them and just when thinks would escalate a voice stopped them.
‘’Sorry!’’ screamed the voice.
Both space marines looked down and it was an adeptus mechanicus from Mikhail teams.
‘’Sorry I ran as fast as I could when master Mikhail sensors went off about finding the entrance’’ Said the tech priest.
The two marines looked at each other and Bernard left towards the entrance and Mikhail went to talk to his Mechanicus ally.
‘’When will the rest of the forces arrive?’’ asked Mikhail
‘’In about an hour, we were spread pretty far and wide in this mountain, to obtain more info plus the snow and ice makes it hard to walk for some of us’’ Replied the priest.
This planet had three weathers only, half the planet was a scorching heat and sand would kill you and jungle where the beast and nature would kill you and where these two ecosystem met at the top of their borders there was ice as cold as space just mountains of ice where each ecosystem met and this was the biggest mountain and could even be seen from space, after waiting and clearing the way Mikhail and Bernard were met with only ninety space marines and mechanicus staff.
Ten were missing, and all were adeptus mechanicus engineers and were last seen looking for an entrance the rest said they also met some resistance but took care of the Xenos but the only entrance was the one the captains had found and so they ventured in all while Mikhail ran analysis on the structure and dwelling further.
‘’What do you see brother tech priest?’’ asked Bernard.
‘’I see the normal readings of a necron tomb world, massive underground structures that cover the whole planet and are infested with Xenos in the millions luckily their awaking process began a few years ago but still the alarming thing is only grunt soldiers are awake no repair bots or anything that regular tomb worlds demonstrate, we must go further to a pylon of power there I can conduct further analysis’’ Said Mikhail.
As they walked what seem like an eternity you feel the cold air in the atmosphere the eeriness of the quiet, not a single noise was heard but the space marines steps and their hearts, they we impatient not scared or nervous but felt like this walking would never end.
They would never reach their end was the common thought on their minds, the halls seem the same and Brother Mikhail was sure they were going the correct way little they did know they were going the way Mikhail wanted which was not always the correct way, here is our second secret from a captain and that was that Mikhail cared too much and only for tech and weapons and ancient STC but that’s normal for a tech marine however what is not normal is the level of obsession.
With this knowledge he will willingly abandon a safe route if it can bring him closer to a technology or weapons he does not concern himself with anyone else not even himself if he can find more technology.
His biggest secret, his biggest sin, is that he will even abandon the Lion for this, he would abandon the whole reason for his chapter, if it could get him what he wanted, he is not evil nor a heretic he does share all his weapons and findings with the chapter after he inspects them of course, and does provide great weapons and great tech support for his brothers and is a captain for a reason.
However he does all this in the hope of finding the ultimate STC, the ultimate blueprint, which he believes will let you improve any design already in existence without even being called a heretic since it would be an STC, and for hundreds of years he has looked and on this journey, on this planet, he has gotten an idea, a thought, that if anyone has dark age of technology or better it would be these necrons.
He has already led for many miles down the tomb world ignoring power sources, going instead for the main and biggest one he has on his radar, on hopes of finding something anything that would bring him closer to his goal.
‘’Are we there yet? We have been walking for hours and still no stopping, this atmosphere feels like we are being watched and its gone on long enough Mikhail what’s going on?’’ Said Bernard now concerned.
The tech marine ignored Bernard and with a handful of servitors and engineers kept walking towards his signal and came to a full stop on what seemed to be a regular wall.
‘’Here it is’’ said Mikhail.
He injected his cable system into the wall and began deciphering the code and the wall lifted but as soon as one of the servitors stepped in everyone was met with the smell or burning flesh and combustion and oil, the servitor had been completely erased by the Xenos security system and triggered an alarm.
‘’What did you do Mikhail?’’ Asked Bernard angrily.
The tech marine rushed to turn off the security system.
‘’I did nothing it got triggered by the servitor, now they know where we are’’ Answered Mikhail.
In the distance, you could hear as it was getting closer and closer, the clanks of metal, the scraping of iron on the floor, the sparks coming from machines running, it was the necron and once again almost in an infected-like state they had human blood, human feces, human piss, human substance all over them and had human viscera as necklaces, and kidneys in the elbows, lungs on their knees, all tied in a crude manner with the skin tissue of humans.
These things seemed concerned with only one thing ‘substance’ something that could cover them something to make them feel anything to make them remember what it once was ‘alive’ later it was discovered that this is a disease that plagues necrons and need to be isolated from other of their kind so to not infect them and this planet was one of the thousands of planets where their overlords send their infected it was in fact a ship that was delivering necron infected that came across by accident into the old chapter master of the Angels of Virtue and it was these Xenos that were now baring down on Ninety angels of virtue.
‘’SHIELD WALL!!!!’’ screamed Bernard, as he and a line of 20 marines lined up with their shields up ‘’OPEN FIRE!!’’
ordered the captain as the back line another twenty marines opened fire.
‘’The rest circle and protect the tech, how long Mikhail?’’ Asked Bernard.
The tech-marine was busy and was so concentrated he could not see anything else or hear anything else.
‘’Damn it Mikhail’’ said Bernard.
As bolter fire opened up and mow downed the necrons ‘’second line take over, fire at will!!!’’ Ordered Bernard.
A line of marines stepped back and another took its place with bolter fire raining down and killing the necrons who all they had was melee weapons, down by the hundreds.
‘’Mikhail we cannot keep this up once we run low on ammunition we will switch to melee and these things have the advantage in numbers and attrition, we will not last long by the Lion give me an estimate damn it’’ Exclaimed Bernard while preparing to fight in close quarters.
The tech marine turned its head slowly data and words and number racing all across its visor.
‘’2 hours’’ Said Mikhail in a somber tone.
Brother Bernard slammed his shield with his sword and spoke.
‘’You shall have your 2 hours brother, and we will have the honor of battle against this ancient foe, LET US NOT FORGET IT WAS NECRONS THAT KILLED THE PREVIOUS CHAPTER MASTER, IT WAS THE NECRONS THAT NEARLY WIPED US OUT TWO HUNDRED YEARS AGO, IT IS THE NECRONS THAT STAND IN THE WAY OF OUR DESITNY, LET US SHOW THESE MACHINES WHAT AN ANGEL OF VIRTUE AND SON OF THE LION IS CAPABLE OF!!! FOR THE LION!!!!’’ all other space marines slam their shield or their armor and yell back.
‘’FOR THE LION!!!’’
As they open bolter fire and make it rain molten metal on the floor the sudden sound of a ‘click’ is enough signal for the Astartes to realize they have run out of ammo.
And the real battle begins, but before that, the necrons actually gave a moment of repose and while they were reloading and switching to their melee weapons they saw the necrons standing still.
‘’Did you do something Mikhail? They have all stopped attacking for some reason’’ Said Bernard.
Mikhail was no longer there he had already deactivated the turret system and ran to plug himself into the main pylon to get information.
‘’Damn it, :cuss:ing tech marines’’ said Bernard.
‘’Sir what is that?’’ Asked a primaris marine next to Bernard.
In response to Mikhail accessing the main chamber a Necron overlord had been awoken, however he too was infected and could use nothing but melee weapons, since his mind was corrupted and could no use his full power he did arrive on the battlefield being accompanied by a Doomsday Cannon.
This weapon was one of the most powerful in the arsenal and the angels could not see the end of it, it was said that these weapons can reach up to Kilometers in length and normally would be on a necron ship, this was held up by metal made of dead necrons and looked like a ribcage holding it up above the ground but these mindless Xenos no longer had the state of mind to think clearly.
‘’NOOOOO!!!!!’’ screamed Bernard.
He knew even if he ran himself towards the necrons he could not stop it so instead he opted for a ranged weapon he reached on his side and took out his plasma pistol that is issued to all seven captains of the Angels of Virtue said to be from the Lions own armory and dark age of technology.
Bernard charged the gun as much as he could before letting off a shot towards the necron overlord but it was too late the plasma opened fire, the laser had shot directly at the space marines the captain and all the way to the chamber of the main pylon which would have also caused the whole tomb world to explode.
However it did not hit its target, thanks to brother Bernard he had hit the overlord and the explosion from necrons dying had cause the floor to become unstable and the cannon had fired semi-upwards and actually blew a whole in the mountain.
A hole that can be seen from all over the planet, they all saw a light come out of the mountain into the sky and as we see all the people all the savages all the space marines reacting to the beam coming out of a mountain we see a figure in the mountains close to where the hole came out of a few kilometers at best it would take the hooded figure a while to arrive and see what was going on.
‘’Found you’’ said the hooded figure.
Bernard was dazed, all the power from the shot had almost left him deaf, but as soon as he could see he became furious at what he saw, some of the beam had nicked the space marines but with a cannon that large a ‘nick’ was around half of their force around sixty space marines were gone in the flash of an eye, all dead.
The necrons started climbing the where the cannon had fallen along with the necron overlord they had not seen that behind them more necrons were coming up but not for them, they were going straight for brother Mikhail, but no one noticed until it was too late.
‘’Survivors on me, circle wall we initiate the last stand protocol either we die or they die, FOR THE LION!!!’’Ordered Bernard.
Around thirty space marines gathered and with their swords started hacking, slashing, and destroying the Xenos, all while retreating to Brother Mikhail’s location, the necron overlord slowly but surely was approaching injured from the blast but still operating almost at one hundred percent of its capacity.
At the same as they were going back and back they started hearing bolter fire coming from the place Mikhail was.
‘’Oh no’’ said Bernard.
As he ditched his team and ran and he saw there, in the main chamber, brother Mikhail missing his left arm and his right leg part of his torso cut, and his eyes had been gauged out however every single necron and metal thing around him had a bolter round in it.
‘’What the hell happened?’’ asked Bernard waiting for someone, anyone to answer.
‘’Bernard’’ said Mikhail.
In an instant Bernard ran and dropped next to him.
‘’Brother you yet live?’’ Said Bernard trying not to move his brother.
Mikhail coughed blood and spoke faintly
‘’yes…..brother…. they wanted skin….. so they took their time….. enough for me and my extra limbs, my claws from my pack to aim at them and kill them all in one shot….they, they did not reach my hearts and the bleeding has stopped, but I do not know how long I can last like this….. also brother I have to tell you what I found…… i-‘’ he was cut off by Bernard
‘’Save your strength brother I will be back for you soon’’ as Bernard left Mikhail tried to speak.
‘’Wait….dont go’’ Said Mikhail, still coughing blood.
And as Bernard left he ordered the only two apothecaries left on his squad to tend to his brother, he went out where the turret had killed the servitor he saw his brothers fighting and dying and took a deep breath as he thought of everything. of everyone .of every muscle in his body of every metal clicking together and causing sparks, he had enough.
‘’MERCY! NOW!!’’ he screamed.
And out of the shadows a servitor emerged and this one was no regular servitor this one had muscle, this one had girth, but this one was not created to fight, it had one purpose to carry the captains weapon.
A two handed Thunderhammer which he named ‘mercy’ as soon as he was handed the weapon he ran, with weapon in hand ran head first into the necrons line, some clawed his helmet, others his armor, but from his speed and momentum no one could stop him he was anger reincarnate and no one could match his zeal he was unstoppable at the moment.
Some necrons were able to scratch or injure him but nothing will slow him down now, nothing will stop him, he has given himself up to his emotion he is no longer a knight he was now a warrior pure bred for battle with the name of Angels of virtue on his back, he would not stop he could not be stopped like a force of nature you could only brace and hoped you were still standing when he was done.
Some Necrons tried to defend, but none were left standing, with each strike more necrons fell, he would crush them from and upward strike to a down slam crushing anything in its way and making the ground tremble.
As soon as he stopped moving the necrons would move in and attack he would take a couple of hits but then would swing his hammer sideways with all his strength and he would take seven to ten necrons per swing.
‘’TWO HOURS!!!!’’ he yelled.
He had seen although brother Mikhail had been wounded he was still connected getting information and Bernard remembered his oath.
‘’Defend for two hours my brothers! this is our oath and if we shall die today we will not do so as oath breakers, SHOW THEM OUR VIRTUE!!!’’ Screamed Bernard.
And they all answered
‘’WE ARE THE SONS OF THE LION!!!’’
And as they continued after two hours finally the data had been downloaded, the space marines along with Mikhail and the apothecaries were just around twenty left, no one else but brother Bernard was behind enemy lines he was bloodied, gut split open, and his ankles had been cut deep, he could barely stand, his helmet was broken, and a slash had claimed his left eye yet he stood.
He stood in front of the necrons who stopped moving, the Xenos overlord was approaching he wanted the final hit he wanted the skin of this warrior who had destroyed so many and he could see the warrior was spent, the warrior was wounded, tired, and possibly even already on deaths door, the necron approached pulled its arm back an meant to push it forward with all its speed and might towards Bernards skull for an instant kill.
Bernard the veteran dodged at the last second by ducking and pressed forward with a tackle the necron now off balance tumbling backwards sees Bernard approaching with a side swing to the body and prepares to counter however the blow never comes not in the body area at least, Bernard had feinted the attack and instead went low with his 2 hands gripping mercy he swings sideways at the left knee of the Xenos, the alien tried to jump but it was too late the crackling noise made impact with the metal limb and crushed it in an instant sparks flew, gears and oil spilled, and following through with his full swing Bernard crushed its right foot as well.
The thing could no longer move, could no longer flee, a moment of realization hit the Necron as it gave the most eerie and chilling shout that would make regular people deaf and bleeding from the ear but for a space marine this was nothing more than a dying order.
As the shout was not meant as an attack it was an order for all other necrons to attack Bernard, in order to save itself, but it was too late, and none of the Xenos would make it in time as you could see in the metal face of the overlord looking up all there was to see was a space marine filled with rage, filled with sorrow, filled with regret, filled with duty, and filled with purpose.
Brother Bernard had already lifted his weapons with his two hands above his head and was in full swing downward when the Xenos who was sitting up tried another screech but it was too late, almost as if a can gets crushed under your foot, the pressure from the hammer and power field was immense the head started crushing first, being condensed into its chest, then stomach, then pelvis, until completely crushed almost like if a construction vehicle had flattened it and the hammer finally met the ground as it made the ground quake.
This created a brief dust cloud and some necrons even fell that were close since they had lost their balance from the attack, as the dust settled all that remained of the two fighters was the dead overlord and the victorious Space marine, the silent was broken by a signal in Bernard helmets that rang with a loud claxon it gave a signal it said ‘two hours complete’ the space marine who was gripping his hammer to the point of his palms bleeding finally let go standing he smiled and simply said.
‘’Oath fulfilled brother’’ Said Bernard breathing heavily.
Mikhail had gotten the data although barely alive and Bernard had bought the time he promised but this did not change the fact that there were still hundreds of necrons coming at them from the previous scream of the overlord, but the space marines had spent their ammunition their energy their blood and there were too few and captain Mikhail had passed out and captain Bernard was on his last legs about to be the first to receive the full brunt of the attack and so as he prepared himself to meet the emperor he saw that the hundreds of necrons had suddenly stopped.
And they also stopped trying to jump the gap that was left from the massive necron cannon when it fell, Bernard almost passing out wiped the blood from his helmet, and tried to zoom in and focus as to what was going on he could see little by little the scene playing out, a metal arm a metal leg and necron head all flew in the air as they were severed from their body, a couple of seconds passed and once again a couple of heads arms and legs from necrons would fly above the Xenos almost as if something was taking them apart but no one could see clearly then as the necrons started concentrating more on what’s behind them and not the space marines brother Bernard.
And all could hear the sound of a power sword no, two power swords, dashing through the field and then they saw it clear as day a space marine with a hooded robe all Angels of Virtue have and the warrior dashed in a zig-zag fashion left and right while going forwards and backwards and all in his way were butchered without knowing what had happened.
The few Necrons that were able to see, were still not able to react and defend and attack, so as their numbers were being cut down and did not how to counter the remaining Necrons decided to go for the prey that they could see and so all the attention turned to Bernard once again they all grouped together and almost in a straight line almost like an arrow rushed forward toward the captain however Bernard was in awe he was not even looking at the necrons coming for him instead he was looking at the space marine who had jumped up as high as possible and had landed right in between the Xenos and Bernard.
‘’Fools’’ Captain William said, removing his hood.
As he gripped his two swords and rushed swords first into the aliens he cut and cut and cut and cut until he had crushed the whole line all the way back to where the battle had first started he had wiped out two hundred necrons by himself and crushed fifty in that last spurt, he was rage incarnate, captain William could not forgive himself he saw all his dead brothers and captain Mikhail and captain Bernard almost dead he could only blame himself for being so slow for not getting away from Rickus squad sooner.
‘’Brother Bernard are you ok? Can you walk?’’ Asked William.
The veteran was still looking as if trying to analyze what was happening and being cut off from the rest of the squads he expected the worse.
‘’Where is chapter master Rickus? Oswin? Where is your squad? Why are you here? Alone?’’ Demanded Bernard.
He was almost on deaths door yet now he seemed to be a little energetic at the Grimm situation
‘’I was given orders by Chapter Master Rickus to come here and provide support, I had others with me but they did not survive our encounters on the way here’’ Said William.
He lied, as such was the ways of the sons of the Lion he had no time to explain nor did he want to and in lying he actually connected with the lie Brother Rickus had told about sending William away for support so no one really knew about the argument they had or that William had fled on his own but Rickus and Oswin and Himself
‘’That’s unfortunate we will have to retrieve their gene seed later, but if the chapter master is alive all is well’’
Bernard then let himself fall backwards and with a loud thud passed out.
‘’Brother are you okay?’’ Asked William.
William kneeled checked captains Bernards pulse and the screamed for an apothecary to come out of the two, one stayed with Mikhail and the other rushed over to help as they arrived and began treating the captain the apothecary spoke. ‘’Captain William sir, I have status report’’ Said the apothecary.
William took his helmet off and what could be seen was the face of a man who was one bad day away from turning on everyone around him just for the fight, someone who would throw anything away for a good fight, for a second captain William seemed like a savage with a frown crunching his eyebrows his forehead making folds as his eyes opened wide and his teeth and jaw clinched tightly.
‘’From what I can see most of you are dead, and these are heavy losses, two captains and most of a company unable to continue and for what? Because some tech marine wanted tech or was it Bernard that wanted to prove something by fighting a necron overlord by himself? What could you possibly have to report? What could be so important that you see the need to interrupt me while I mourn my brothers and worry about my fellow captains?’’ Said William Angrily.
The apothecary now almost shocked, gulped his saliva and thought out really carefully what he was going to say before finally breaking the silence.
‘’When we got to brother Mikhail he was gravely injured however even in his state he still continued to access information as he promised his fellow captain he got it done within two hours and then passed out into a coma from his injuries but not before speaking, as we arrived and started treating him on captain Bernards orders he had asked the captain to wait but the captain was lost in rage and could not listen, but we could hear the captain we heard his words before passing out’’ Said the Apothecary.
Then like a thunderbolt striking at his heart finally some good news since landing on this forsaken death world.
‘’Brother Mikhail said the attack from the massive cannon made the power source weaker and was able to hack more detailed data and now he can control it and have done so to help us, it should work now’’ Said the Apothecary.
Captain Williams face got a little bit more relaxed and asked ‘’What should work now?’’ He asked.
The apothecary finishing emergency treatment on captain Bernard said
‘’ The communications sir and he also turned off the global defense system’’ Replied the apothecary.
William could not believe it finally some progress.
‘’Now we can call back up from our main fleet in space and even get air support to get between places quicker’’ said captain William.
‘’About that, as soon as I heard that, I checked the Vox and there was an emergency broadcast from Librarian Geoffrey and Head Apothecary Manus, you should listen to it yourself my lord’’ Said the Apothecary.
William put his helmet back on and listened to his Vox and to the signal and after a couple of seconds of silence he spoke ‘’Holy terra, can it really be so?’’ Said William.
the apothecary put his hand on captain Williams shoulder and said.
‘’Yes my Lord it seem destiny is here for us today and we are making true progress in the goal our chapter was created for, and all this death will have meaning it will not be pointless’’ said the apothecary before then saluting with an Aquila and said.
‘’For the God emperor! For the Lion!’’
captain William nodded and shouted back.
‘’For the Lion! Brother’’. Said William, feeling devastated at the loss but not wanting to show his emotions to his brothers, since as of now a victory is what they needed, even a small one.

Diamanchez · March 27

First of all, i would like to take this opportunity to address all of you who have been reading so far, i really do appreciate you taking the time to read my story it really means a lot to me, so for that thank you, truly to all of you, second of all this will be my last post for this week, i do not post on weekends, (Saturdays i rest/polish & edit the chapters and Sundays i rest and spend time with my daughter), and lastly i would really appreciate any feedback or critique anyone might have, i am new to 40k but i have drowned myself in books(only the siege of terra and other dark angel books since the rest are pretty expensive), games (i play tacticus everyday and i love space hulk Deathwing even if no one plays it anymore) media and a bunch of YouTube videos (majorkill and others) and in Mexico there really is not a lot of 40k fans and they are all mainly new ones who just know the ultramarines, so i would like to see critique or feedback on the lore, the story, the characters, are they dark angel? is the new enemy ill introduce today fit the mold of their legion? and so on, i have almost no one to talk to about 40k, so once again any feedback or critique would be appreciate it, and with that, i am off, hopefully you enjoy this chapter as you read it and hopefully you like it enough to want to see what happens on Monday on chapter 6 (by next week on Friday the first book will be finished, dropping chapter 10 and the epilogue next Friday + Character index to explain more on each character), so yeah, thanks everyone, and i look forward to seeing you all on Monday, enjoy your weekend Brothers!

Chapter 5
Confrontation

The room is cold, its dark, you can hear leaks of water droplets making small splashing noise, and that’s it, nothing else, not even the sounds of the engines can be heard here.
In this moment the room stands almost a kilometers wide and kilometers in height, a massive structure, for this is an Astartes spaceship.
And in the far edge of it near the window there is a space marine looking out into space he had long black hair pale white skin and was grinning at the space he was looking at, showing his fangs instead of regular teeth and black clot eyes leaving no white to be seen only darkness.
The warrior held a bolter gun on one side and a power sword on another while in his left hand a power claw was seen his armor was dark blue with red outlines adorned with all matter of flayed skin around the shoulders and feet while skulls dangled from it waist and a long red cape covered his back.
‘’What is it?’’ the warrior spoke
‘’My lord’’said a voice from the shadows almost as if they were melted into the shadow itself the warrior walked out.
He was also pale with black hair but his was short and his eyes were extremely wide and big even for an Astartes, his armor same color same pattern of skin on his armor and bones instead of skulls in his waist making a tabard of skulls, he welded a power sword and for some reason a small shield that appeared to have been fused or melted into his arm, and he was waiting for an order anything his lord could say to him, the warrior near the window sighed let out some air and spoke .
‘’I order you to speak, Gendor’’ Said the Warrior.
Gendor, was euphoric that his lord had ordered something, and as soon as he answered he almost fell to his knees from the sheer emotional roller coaster he was feeling, such was his curse and his power, in exchange for better reflexes and quicker movement and strength Gendor would suffer if he did not fulfill an order from his master, but would feel immense pleasure when assisting him, protecting him, or fulfilling his orders.
‘’Master Kurtz we are nearing the planet’’ he rolled on the ground for a bit while soiling himself from the excitement like a small pet who gets too excited and wets itself.
‘’Sorry my Lord as I was saying we are nearing the planet however the signal seems to split there is one in space and one on a planet, also it seems there is a astartes chapter here already we ran the reports and they came back as Angels of Virtue?’’ Reported Gendor.
Kurtz turned to look at space but closed his eyes for a second and asked with his eyes closed.
‘’Were you able to track their origin at least? For us from the days of the great crusade only hundreds of years or at most a couple of thousand years have passed since we live on the warp, but these ‘chapters’ as Guiliman calls them are more confusing each day, I cant count how many we have killed already, just let me know who they come from so we can start labeling their geneseed when we sell it to Fabius Bile’’ Said Kurtz in a tired tone.
There is quiet in the room for a couple of seconds before the shielded warrior breaks the silence.
‘’They are of Dark angel descent my lord’’ Said Gendor with a slight smile.
Kurtz opened his eyes looked directly at Gendor’s eyes and gave an almost sickening grin that reached from one ear to another.
‘’Is that so my little pet? Is that correct? Are we finally going to go on our long awaited lion hunting? It has been ten thousand years since the thramas crusade where we the night lords under Lord Curze fought the Lions angels and we still have a bone or two to pick with them’’ Said Kurtz.
He was smiling out of control drool even started to come out of his mouth and then almost as If catching himself fall he went back to normal.
‘’Sorry you had to see that, ever since I was granted these abilities by the changer of ways I have been changing ever so slightly, but the power is worth it’’ Finished Kurtz.
Gendor stood quietly and spoke.
‘’Not at all my Lord, no worries ,however since this is a Dark angel chapter do you think we should inform Vladius?’’ Asked Gendor no longer smiling.
Kurtz turned back to the window.
‘’Yes I believe you should tell him, and get him moving, he has not done much fighting lately just spends his time in the dungeon this will wake him up’’ Said Kurtz.
Gendor nodded and waited once again for his lord to speak, Kurtz understandably annoyed knew that he had to phrase himself this way every time he spoke to Gendor.
‘’I order you to tell Vladius that dark angels are here’’ Ordered Kurtz.
Then, Gendor happy as could be left the room running and as he was leaving another white skin warrior walked in however this one had less armor and three long wires coming out if its skulls ‘butchers nails’ they called it he had no shoulder guard and was bare feet and had his helmet on and one sword on each side, the warriors nodded their head as they past each other however Kurtz was rubbing in between his eyes with his thumb and index finger already seeing what was going to happen.
‘’My lord it is time’’ Said the warrior with the Nails.
Kurtz turned around and saw that the warrior had drawn both of his swords.
‘’Is it not ALWAYS time Drak?’’ Said Kurtz in annoyed tone, as he drew his sword with is right hand and lit electricity on his left power claw.
‘’such is our way my Lord’’ said Drak.
He began by lunging forward and trying to stab Kurtz however his blow met nothing but air Kurtz had dodged by side stepping to the left the second sword swung horizontally it was a Chainsword, but turned off at the moment for some reason, the first blade as well was not lit.
It looked like a normal blade, Kurtz parried the blow and stepped back and then went forward with his claw he attacked.
The warrior blocked with both blades before seeing Kurtz’s blade coming at him from his side aiming at his head Drak ducked and sparks flew as a small part of the warriors helmet had been cut by Kurtz.
‘’Shame, I meant to give your body and upgrade my removing your head from it, although I guess you do deserve some praise for dodging’’ Said Kurtz, grinning menacingly all sharp teeth showing almost like a shark.
‘’is that what you want? To praise you? To tap your head? You want recognition right? To lead? To conquer?’’ Said Kurtz.
In the night lords factions and warbands it was common for leaders to rise in the ranks thru duels, murder and war this was the 367th time Drak had tried to kill Kurtz he had not been close to killing him, until today that is.
‘’You die today my lord!!’’ screamed the Kurtz.
‘’Same saying different day, come!! We have things to do, let us finish this’’ Said Kurtz.
Kurtz started running first this time the warrior expecting this gripped both his swords but the power sword finally turned however the warriors right arm began to twitch to struggle almost as if the weapon had gained tremendous weight all of the sudden.
Veins were almost coming out of his skin the sword lit up with electricity but instead of being the normal blue color it was a crimson red color, Kurtz eyes opened wide the red reflecting in his eyes, the light got closer and almost cut his head from the nose up, but he dodged, he had ducked and slipped past Drak, and they were back to back.
They both spun one hundred and eighty degrees to face each other with their swords, they met, and sparks flew between the blades, both warriors were sent back from the attack, but Drak reacted faster before Kurtz could gain footing he was met with the chainsword.
Now it was turned on, now it was steaming, and shooting smoke through its exhaust, but the smoke was red pinkish mist Kurtz tried to block with is power claw but sparks flew as he was knocked aside from the momentum, one sword had speed and finesse and the other power and strength.
Kurtz saw it, he could see the blade on the right hand coming for him, it was not within his line of sight yet, but he could feel where the blade would enter his ribcage and open him up from the inside and spill his intestines, however this never came to be, as soon as the blade was going to hit Kurtz Side and bleed him open, a sudden gulf of air was felt and then white smoke as if you were to crush a thousand small bones and grind them to fine dust had just been thrown in front of Drak had appeared, and before anything could happen a power blade slid under his ear.
Before he could say anything a sharp pain came to him and blood splattered and his ear fell to the ground.
‘’There, I win now clean your self off and lets get to the meeting room’’ Said Kurtz with a slight smile.
Drak was breathing hard not understanding at all what had happened but he did have an educated guess.
‘’You were Cursed by our fathers gene seed, by being able to see into the future, and you also made some sort of deal with the Blue God and that was you second power I forced you to use today, ill be ready for it next time’’ Said Drak smiling liking the blood from his ear.
Kurtz sheathed his sword and pulled his hair back as he began to walk away.
‘’Yes yes whatever you say come on now, like I mentioned we have work to do’’ Finished Kurtz.
As they leave and wait for the elevator to arrive it was still coming up from the last floor on the ship out of twenty floors and the bottom one was where Vladius recited.
‘’I see you are busy with your tortures as usual’’ said Gendor.
‘’I merely experiment different ways to obtain information that is all’’ Said the Giant, as Vladius was not a normal chaos space marine, he had allowed himself to be experimented on and had gain tremendous muscle mass.
In front of him were flayed men, women and even Astartes some were cut into pieces, some were barely alive with limbs missing, some were long dead but perfectly preserved, this was not a torture chamber it was a butchers fridge in all accounts.
‘’I have learned that each legion reacts differently and tells different things depending on where I start peeling their skin isn’t that interesting?’’ Said Vladius.
‘’yes, very interesting indeed what else have you learned?’’ Asked Gendor.
The massive Night lord turned and smiled.
‘’They CAN feel fear’’ He said.
As he turned back to the body he was working on it was an Astartes alive but tied down with its ribcage open from the back to the front, lungs were hanging from its neck where they had been pulled, and its beating hearts were being monitored by servitors to record the pulses.
‘’But you have come here for a reason correct?’’ Asked Vladius, as he proceeded to cut into the kidney of the space marine as it struggled but could not move more than a few inches in pain.
‘’Why yes I’m here to fulfill his orders’’ Said Gendor as he began to drool and get excited as he was about to fulfill yet another task From Kurtz.
‘’He said to tell you that we have an old enemy in the system to see if this would get you out of this cave, which by the way I do not know why you are here and not on the first floors with the rest of us’’ Said Gendor Puzzled.
The space marine tied to the table struggling and convulsing as he was being cut from the inside out carefully as to feel every cut but not bleed out.
‘’I need to focus on this and I left the other floors to focus since Talos and his Plague lord experiments made the whole seventh floor fall into quarantine, mad doctor that one is, and so unless this old enemy is the emperor or a primarch himself I don’t see the point in me going’’ Said Vladius as he continued cutting with a steady and focused hand.
‘’Oh? Really? So you will not move? Even for the SONS of a primarch? We have the sons of the lion amongst us my Lord’’ Said Gendor with a twisted grin.
As soon as the word lion had been spoken the space marine in the table started convulsing the knife had now been driven deep into its spines almost like an angry animal pouncing on a prey it was crushing bone until it cut all the way trough and reached the table the space marine shook and struggled as much as he could before bleeding out, Vladius stood straight up looked over at his armory and grabbed a massive two handed great sword and put it over his shoulder and looked back at Gendor and said.
‘’So when do we start?’’ he said in a serious tone.

The massive room had now been turned into a meeting room table and seven seats the night lords meeting was going to take place as all seven generals entered Kurtz stood at the end and sat then they all sat.
‘’Welcome brothers, today we shall discuss our plan against these Dark angels, and take over this planet called Sheogorath’’ Said Kurtz.
Then Gendor stood and spoke.
‘’We have gotten and old radar from ten thousand years ago that once belonged to our gene father Curze himself, and it says there is something here emitting a signal related to him we came here to find this signal and when we arrived it split in two one coming from space and another from this planet’’ Finished Gendor
They looked at the data and Kurtz spoke.
‘’Now night lords we shall wage war against these false angels and bring our justice to our Galaxy, Ave dominus nox!’’
yelled Kurtz
‘’All hail the night lord!!’’
they all yelled back even thought Curze had been dead for thousands of years.

The walls are now metal, the air is cold, the noise is gone, there is no water dropping here, there is no night lords here, no here we are in a necron tomb, its halls massive its darkness haunting and its silence eerie.
‘’Brother we have to turn back we have to leave’’ said captain Oswin .
‘’We have lost too many men we have no more ammunition we have been fighting for close to three days now with not a single moment of rest or to plan effectively’’ Said Oswing.
Chaplain Rickus was covered in wounds they were minor wounds sure but even a massive animal can fall with enough damage.
‘’No, we cannot turn back we must find the relic’’ Said Rickus without looking at Oswin.
Oswin got in front of Rickus and punched him straight in the face Rickus saw it coming but was too tired to move and received and fell on his back as he tried to get up Oswin grabbed him by his robe and lifted him.
‘’Out of the original one hundred we are only twenty five left, and they are endless, they do not stop coming, they do not need rest, they are infinite, these necrons are unrelenting brother this is not a retreat this a chance for us to gather all the info we have collected and then come back with reinforcements and continue’’ Pleaded Oswin.
The chaplain looked back there was only five neophytes apprentices covered in wounds and twenty space marines and he himself was tired but if he was going to do this he was going to do it his way.
‘’if we shall leave let us make sure they don’t follow us’’ said Rickus.
Oswin smiled under his helmet.
‘’Me and the men have already set the explosives brother’’ Said Oswin.
The chaplain looked around and nodded.
‘’Let us go now, however ill lead this time, its my turn’’ Said Rickus.
The chapter master grabbed his crozium and his shield and started walking back where they came from as they were met by the flesh wearing necrons Rickus met every blow he would not let any single one get past him he would parry and attack parry and attack, parry, parry and attack, block, and attack block, and attack, block, he was locked in a trance.
He did not feel the wounds taking their toll on him, every so often a few slashes would reach him, but reach him was all they did, none delivered fatal blows.
Oswin and the rest would pick off any injured necron still trying to move or would guard the chapter masters back and after six hours of non-stop fighting they had finally made it out where they had entered everyone was leaving almost running rushing to the now cold night air of the desert.
And Part of the planets original wreckage had crash landed in a way that it actually penetrated some of the necrons tomb world thus connecting it to the ship, after the argument with captain William Rickus and Oswin had ventured into the tomb world believing that the relic had to be there since the ship was empty however after days of fighting and running fighting and running they had reached their limit.
An Astartes can fight for months without rest however that is only in a normal battle in a war where the two hearts the three lungs are in an elevated state of usage constantly this can take its toll even on an Astartes.
‘’Now we have to find a way back to space and get reinforcements lets go lets start moving we all saw the laser coming out of the mountain something happened and we shall see’’ Said Rickus.
The mountain side was more than hundreds of km away now and the remaining space marines were exhausted, Rickus about to yell at them gained a moment of peace and serenity as he felt his wrist blink with an upcoming Vox signal, It was brother Manus and brother Geoffrey's broadcast followed by an answer by captain William informing what the great beam had been and the status of the situation, Rickus felt too many things all at once upon hearing what had happened to Brother Mikhail and brother Bernard he was even more in shock at what brother Geoffrey and Manus had found
‘’get me a thunder hawk here NOW!’’ yelled Rickus into the vox.
As they arrived to pick him up he ordered all captains and everyone to leave the planet and back to their main ship where they would hold a meeting and discuss everything however one thing was clear and that was that without the help of one person none of this would have been possible as if this person had not saved brother Bernard and brother Mikhail we wound not have known the Vox was operatable and if Mikhail had died before William reached them no one would have been able to turn off the global defense system.
Since it was now in the data base any tech marine could use them but William was the one that saved them and proved himself in this battle the Angels of virtue now thinking they are near the end first hold a funeral for all their fallen brothers then in the same great hall where the dead had been honored a ceremony took place to recognize brother Williams deeds.
‘’We stand here today all sons of the Lion and us survivors witness of captain Williams bravery and zeal I cannot deny his deeds his zeal and his skill with a massive kill count during this crusade and played a key role in winning and regrouping us all together, step forward son of the Lion brother William’’ Said Rickus.
It was the first time in his whole life William had ever felt somewhat fulfilled for years he had tried to be recognized to be called by his name and so his time had come he stepped forward and knelt in front of Rickus.
‘’Here stands an example of what it means to be a Angel of Virtue I grant the laurels of victory upon his frame may he wear them proudly and show everyone that this is a son of the Lion, For captain William!! For the Lion!!’’ yelled Rickus
‘’For William!! For the Lion!!!’’ yelled everyone back,
then later on that day the captains gathered to discuss their next move everyone was present except Brother Mikhail who was in critical condition they all sat around the table and Rickus spoke,
‘’lets us mourn our brothers by finishing the mission’’ He said.
Everyone nodded.
‘’Brother William, status report’’ said the chaplain
‘’Out of the three hundred troops deployed around two hundred and fifty were killed, more than half, brother Bernard suffered many injuries but will live and is operational brother Manus lost a heart and is injured brother Geoffrey suffered injuries too, since he was hit at point blank range by a large animal Oswin and chapter master Rickus suffered injuries but are operational I myself suffered minor injuries but captain Mikhail is in critical condition’’ Finished William.
Everyone looked down for a second hoping their brother would pull trough.
‘’What was accomplished by all this the liberation of a necron planet we have a new population and planet under the angels of virtue flag to recruit and gather supply from we successfully have gained control of the global defense system and most importantly we found that’’ Said the chapter master Rickus
He pointed to the middle of the table and there it was, the relic the one thing so many had died for.
‘’This will lead us to our destiny and fulfill our chapters purpose’’ said Rickus he went closer to the relic and picked it up and showed it to everyone.
It was not a relic at all, it was a glove, but not any glove, after analysis it was confirmed it belong to none other than Lionel Johnson primarch of the dark angels and gene father of the Angels of Virtue
‘’This is our fathers glove’’ Said Rickus.
Everyone looked at each other then back at the chapter master.
‘’It has been here since the great crusade ten thousand years ago, but before we move on I will give an update on how we will proceed, brother William tell them’’ Said Rickus.
Captain William lit up a hologram of the planet and its nearby outer space
‘’approximately two hours ago an Astartes vessel was recorded entering our current solar system we ran the tags and it shows it’s a night lords vessel’’ Said William.
The space marines all tensed up, they had faced beasts and savages, and Xenos but fighting the archenemy, a trained Astartes with thousands of years of experience, was no laughing matter.
‘’As they have entered they could have multiple objectives, whether to kill us, take this planet or the worst case scenario’’ Brother Bernard recovering and barely able to speak.
‘’What is the worst case scenario?’’ Asked Bernard.
Rickus looked at each one of his men and spoke.
‘’They have come here for the same thing we have, For the Lion’’ he said, and everyone was stunned.
‘’What do you mean brother?’’ asked apothecary Manus.
‘’First ill tell you the plan brothers, Mikhail will stay here on the ship since he cannot speak or move Brother Manus will stay here to monitor him understood?’’ Said Rickus.
Manus got closer to him almost so to hide something and said:
‘’We might be able to save him but you would have to approve what we discussed Rickus, have faith in the Emperor and he shall guide us’’ Explained Manus.
The chaplain nodded and approved it on a data slate.
‘’Captain Bernard and captain William and librarian Geofrey will stay on the planet, they have now sworn themselves to the imperium, and we must protect them’’ Said Rickus.
William, Bernard and Geoffrey looked at each other and nodded in confirmation then Before Rickus spoke again, William interrupted.
‘’Chapter master, I am not familiar with the protocol when finding a relic of such magnitude, do we deliver it to the rock? Do we contact the inquisition?or does it stay with as we crusade the galaxy?’’ Asked William.
Being a primaris and new to the chapter he of course knew the basics but such a relic had never been found thus his concern.
‘’I was about to get to the part brother William, do not let your new status get the better of you’’ Said Rickus as he William nodded.
‘’I will now continue with the explanation, the main part is this Glove its pointing to our next objective in this solar system there is a signal being broadcasted and this glove is reacting to it, Oswin and myself will go there and obtain the final step to our destiny brothers’’ Said Rickus as then stopped speaking for a second and looked at his brothers and spoke.
‘’The signal has been analyzed and it belongs to none other than the main flagship of our gene-father and were he lived for years, where he could either be, or something there could lead us to him, we shall board and protect the ship, the Invincible Reason!’’ everyone was shocked it was said the ship had been lost centuries ago ‘’And we will never fall to the traitors, and we will accomplish our destiny, or die with honor, FOR THE LION!!!’’ they all stood and yelled.
‘’FOR THE LION!!!’’

Edited March 27 by Diamanzo

Diamanchez · March 30

Chapter 6
Prey

The wind was blowing and the sun was up but not for long as it would soon set, the grains of sand could be heard crashing and bouncing off metal surfaces, most was due to what the people of this planet called ‘home’ a huge necron spaceship that had crashed on the planet and was taken over by the people, thousands were surrounding the high walls of the now spaceship turned city there were thousands on the floor near the gate all inside the city and even thousands more inside waiting to be called upon.
‘’You really think they will come?’’ asked captain William
‘’They will, this I have foreseen’’ said Librarian Geoffrey
‘’It helps that their main tactics is scaring the population and we have put everyone who has sworn loyalty to the imperium from the planet in this one city’’ explained Brother Bernard.
The three captains stood ready on orders from the chapter master, they were to defend the people of this world kill the enemy and then reinforce whatever battlefield was still being fought either at the Lions flagship or their own.
They knew the night lords would be after their gene seed stocks and being a fleet based chapter the angels of Virtue always had their stock with them on their main ship and at this moment, they had gathered the perfect bait for the night lords, the people themselves will be fighting, and protecting them will be the Angels of the Lion one hundred space marines ready and dispersed at every major checkpoint or vantage point in the city, Librarian Geoffrey had requested more of his squad of librarians to show up here since he said he had seen they were needed.
‘’I don’t think they will show up until night falls, then they will strike like cowards’’ Said Bernard
‘’I have not fought them before but I have read of them and I do believe we must prepare better for a night raid’’ Added William.
‘’No’’ Said Librarian Geoffrey as he started to turn his head and body toward the horizon.
They were on the middle of the gate right on top of it a makeshift gate from wielding metal together and a bridge that was taken out of the ship and put on there but it was enough to see what was coming and so the librarian pointed and spoke.
‘’There is our enemy’’ He said.
Captain William zoomed in with his helm to see something unfamiliar to him, these were what seem to be men but had fur, some had ears of animals, some just animal heads themselves, some were dogs or lions from the waist down, others had arms of beast just fully replacing their own arms, some were hybrids having two heads and their limbs a mixture of both animal and human anatomy the one thing the captain noticed was that these animals were actually carrying weapons and seemed to know how to use them, as he looked on and try to count he saw that there were thousands of them rushing at full speed towards them.
‘’Prepare to fire! Everyone take aim! Once I give the order fire at will!’’ Ordered William.
The space marines all took aim as William was too focused on the beasts at their front, he noticed the captains signaling him to come closer so as to no one else could hear them.
‘’Brother William you need to be careful not to get carried away with these Beast men they are a common cannon fodder for the forces of chaos’’ Said Bernard.
He pointed top what now seemed just a wave of black shadow rushing them and spoke
‘’What do you really see? Are beast men all that is there? Think as an Just an Astartes for now not a general or a soldier’’ Said Bernard.
William then focused his sight and started seeing everything a little bit more calmly and in between all the black and dark shadows all the fur and skin and mutations all the smell of sweat, piss and :cuss: that already reached them there was small glimpses of a different color of a different shine of a different weapon, it was blue armor with a skull in the chest plate adorned by red bat-like wings.
‘’Night lords’’ said William as he quit looking.
Brother Bernard stood up and started heading down to the main gate.
‘’They are in the rabble, they are with the enemy and as soon as they crash into our walls they will infiltrate this city, we cannot let that happen they are really good at fighting in urban areas it would be better to cut them off now’’ Explained Bernard.
He picked up his thunder hammer and started heading toward the gate and speaking through the Vox to the captains
‘’I will take a couple of hundred men and Twenty space marines once you open fire, before they reach the gate ill be there outside waiting for them ill be the bait once that happens try to shoot down mainly the night lords and then I will retreat back in before it gets too chaotic’’ Said Bernard.
The captain then signaled the men and they started following the gates open and they started leaving.
‘’Brother Bernard, a word of advice’’ Said Geoffrey ‘’if you play your part you will live do not try to do more than what you can this I have foreseen’’ Said Librarian Geoffrey.
Captain William looked over at Bernard and nodded he got into shooting position and spoke.
‘’Don’t worry Brother Bernard I will be here as support, your plan will work’’ Said Captain William.
As they were finished speaking the beasts were almost upon them and brother Bernard spoke into his Vox but publicly for everyone to hear.
‘’You are part of the imperium now! You are part of the angels of virtue now! You are not mere soldiers, you are chosen here today to fight and die in honor of the Emperor! of the Lion! and of this world!’’ Said Bernard.
He turned and aimed with his hammer and all his men aimed towards the enemy.
‘’These are not enemies! These are dead beasts who have no place to rest! Well, we shall show them our Virtue! We shall show them our Courage! And we shall show them their tombs!’’ Finished Bernard.
He then signaled William to fire.
‘’FIRE AT WILL!!!!’’ Shouted captain William.
Lasbolt, bolter fire, plasma guns, heavy cannons and anything the people of this world had scavenged was all being shot at the beasts coming up, they had weapons sure, but none had the reach or range yet to shoot back, the night lords however were another story they are very few in number but some did shoot back with bolter rifles, and hit with deadly accuracy but every shot that killed and angel, William would follow the muzzle flash and shoot back actually killing night lord Astartes in a couple of shots.
Then as the shots raged on and were wiping out the beast men who were dying, you could see limbs flying, animals limping, heads weeping, mutants :cuss:ting and pissing themselves, where their organs had been blown out, but almost all still moved forward without stopping, and finally they made it to the main gate where they were met by Brother Bernard and his squad.
‘’Shield line!!’’ ordered Bernard ‘’Space marines up front, Soldiers form lines and take turns firing and reloading and repeat’’ Ordered Bernard.
The soldiers all though not military per-se did know how to hold and use their weapons they had been in battles before amongst themselves for territory or other survivors who had landed here now they all had just one purpose and one goal, to kill the enemy that was on their planet.
‘’Here they come!!!Brace!!!’’ Yelled Bernard.
Even if they were dying they would not stop and their crude weapons their chainswords their chainaxes their mauls all crashed against ceremite steel of the shields of the angels, as sparks flew the marines pushed back and all struck in front of them with swords and getting support fire from the soldiers.
‘’We got this brothers do not let up!!’’ Said Bernard as he himself went to the front and started killing beast men.
By hitting once, full force, he would crush bone and completely flatten these beast, organs and viscera flew all around him each time his hammer struck, no one could block it and everyone would see him and aim for him while his brothers protected him from his blind spots, and then he saw it, a different night lord than the ones who had tried to sneak in.
‘’Finally you are here’’ Said Bernard to himself.
He did not know who this night lord was, but he did know one thing, that this was the thing he needed for him to feel fulfilled, like all Dark angels he had a secret only known to him, the Secret of Captain Bernard is that he never wanted to become a space marine.
He just thought he would die eventually during surgery, during a battle, during anything, but he didn’t, he survived, he endured, he learned, he became stronger, he rose in rank, and then he realized what he really wanted, he didn’t want to die, no not just any death, he wanted a glorious death a worthy death, a death where a warrior could completely outmatch him without a doubt, he wanted to feel what it would be like if a warrior of over six hundred years such as himself suddenly hit a wall, to feel what it was like that the galaxy was truly vast, he had found no such opponent in all this time, until now that is.
The warrior was running amongst the beast men he had butchers nails in his head and one sword on each hand his name is Drak, and he was fuming with anger from losing a duel to Kurtz.
‘’leave the big one with the hammer to me” he said not even yelling.
All the beast men felt his anger and bloodlust and opened up a path for him once again his power sword was still off and so was his chainsword.
‘’We need to help him he looks like bad news’’ Said Captain William.
But just as William finished speaking he saw that Geoffrey had been hit in the clavicle by a Night lord then two, then three, then six night lords infiltrated up top, William drew his blade and engaged them so save the librarian who had just send two night lords flying with his Psyker energy, but could not speak since his injury kept him busy, he then signaled his librarians to join him as William attacked the other night lords on the wall with his brother primaris.
Back at the gate Drak and Bernard met face to face after Bernard killed hundreds of beast men.
‘’Bring it on, traitor’’ Said Bernard.
‘’You move pretty good for an old man’’ Said Drak.
He stabbed Forward with his power sword multiple times, and Bernard blocked them with the hilt and staff part of his Warhammer while stepping back, but every time he tried to strike the traitor would dodge and ever so slightly cut him a little bit on the side of the armor, on the armguard, on the helmet, or on the shin guard non were lethal but they were letting Bernard know very clearly that when that power sword turned on, the traitor became quicker with more finesse and was able to hit him where he wanted.
‘’You dare taunt me? You dare miss my vitals on purpose? You will pay for this’’ said Bernard in anger.
Drak smiled and pressed on stabbing with his power sword and when he missed he would swing horizontally with turned off chainsword but still nothing lethal happened as Bernard was being pushed against the wall of the gate, his troops stepped aside they were ordered not to interfere, just as Bernard's back hit the wall he dodged an upcoming Vertical slash from the right hand of the warrior Bernard dodge to his left he then swings his hammer horizontally aiming for the warriors right side ribcage
‘’Almost’’ said Drak.
As his power sword turned on and he moved however he was stopped by something, the wall he had hit the wall Bernard had perfectly pivoted around him and his blow had been a feint before the Night lord could react a massive thunder hammer was raining down on him from the top of his head.
‘’Take this!!! You traitor!!” Screamed Bernard.
He knew he could not keep up with the warriors speed and reflexes, so by pinning him against the wall he had removed the speed out of the equation and also made it where his power would dominate, or so he thought.
‘’Damn it!!’’ screamed the night lord.
As he was barely able to stop the blow with his chainsword however the blow was too strong and his arms suffered greatly, his legs were being crushed by the anger and weight of Brother Bernard.
‘’Die!!!’’ Yelled Bernard.
The night lord spit blood and spoke.
‘’I hate to do this, but you seem to think you can overpower me’’ Said Drak Growling while showing his teeth and gums from his mouth.
His power sword then turned off and his chainsword started revving and shooting out reddish smoke out of the exhaust and at the same time the warrior let out a scream that did not seem human.
It is at this time that Bernard notices the butchers nails pumping and moving into the warriors brain, the chainsword now sparking its teeth against the top of the Hammer was also rising up, Bernard was being overpowered, and in a sudden moment the warrior pushed the Warhammer so hard that it flew back just as it had come down almost as if it was in repeat, and before brother Bernard could swing his hammer back down again the warrior smiled.
Drak’s chainsword stopped and his power sword turned on again in a blink of an eye, he cut three times, three horizontal slashes, the first one cut from the right knee all the way to the left hip, then rose from the left hip to the right shoulder, and the final cut went from the right shoulder to the left shoulder cutting Bernards head clean off.
‘’NOOOO!!!!!’’ yelled William From up top.
As he had just finished off the night lords up top he checked on Geoffrey and was told his injuries were minor and could be treated, but his body was tired from recently seeing the future to warn Bernard and the injury and he could not be treated until they got more time to heal him, it did not matter, as soon as William had heard the Librarian would live he had already rushed to the gate by himself, with soldiers trying to keep up he saw as Drak slaughtered the rest of the marines and the soldiers before opening the gate and seeing the filth, the mutation, the traitor, in front of him by himself the beast men were now few but uncontrollable at this point their were climbing in and rushing from everywhere the librarian will handle it thought William for him only one thought was on his mind, Vengeance.
‘’I’m sorry was that your friend? Your brother? He did seem old was he like a mentor? You seem awfully angry do you not know how war works? You are a primaris marine after all’’ Said Drak Smiling.
William said nothing he just unsheathed both his swords and attacked, he lunged forward while the warrior stepped back and turned on his power sword, he was quick, he was quicker than William but the captain had already seen this and was adapting.
‘’Oh? You got some talent I see you can keep with my speed by using your instincts talent and experience, lets see what you do against this then’’ taunted Drak.
His power sword turned off and the chainsword revved again the tubes in his skull started moving again this time there was no finesse no technique just raw power.
And once again William was able to barely fend him off by parrying with extreme technique, but he could not go on the offensive, every time he tried the traitor would get quicker with his other sword, so William had a plan.
‘’You will pay for his death this I promise you’’ Said William in an angry tone.
He struck with his right hand as quickly as possible and the warrior noticed that William only had one sword, and was holding it with two hands, he then for a moment clashed with chainsword pinning Drak in place, he saw the sun being obstructed by a shadow, William had thrown his sword in the air and now a turned on power sword was going to land on Drak who was pinned.
‘’You are mad! It could get us both or just you! Let me go!’’ Said Drak in desperation.
Then William was the one to smile this time.
‘’What’s the matter night lord? Don’t tell me YOU feel fear?’’ Said William with a mocking smile.
Drak then turned off his chainsaw and nails and let the blow come to him like water he turned on his power sword and dodged and in a fit of anger instead of retreating like he would normally do he decided to use his speed to stab William in the chest.
However this was all part of Williams plan, he managed to dodge a fatal blow by moving slightly almost as if he was jumping or reaching for something high above him and instead of the chest he stabbed William in the lower abdomen missing all vital organs.
‘’No matter ill just stab you a thousand more times you cannot escape or block me’’ Said Drak now lost in anger only thinking of killing the Space marine in front of him.
Then as he tried to pull his arm back to strike again he noticed William had let go of his weapon and was now barehanded, and grabbed Draks right arm with his right arm, and did not let him retreat.
‘’You also cannot escape me’’ Said William.
William had not only reached out to the top or jumped to dodge he had also done so to grab the sword he had thrown, just as he caught it, the warrior tried to let got of the swords but it was too late, the curse or gift he had was that he could never let go of his swords while he was fighting, William swung down with full force, full anger, full of vengeance for Bernard, with his left hand the power sword reached Dark’s head, and his nails started spurting blood and bone marrow as the sword kept going.
‘’DIE!!!!!!!!” Screamed William.
He then put all his weight into his strike slicing the body clean in half down the middle, from the head all the way to the pelvis, as guts and viscera spilled the demon swords exploded into red smoke and sent William flying backwards a couple of meters, but he saw the body in half with guts and blood all around it, the fight was finished the traitor was dead, and Bernard had been avenged, just as William was getting back up a red demon and blue demon emerged from the smoke these were almost the size of William the red one had a sword with horns and blood spilling from its mouth and it was crouched the blue one seemed more round had a staff and stood up almost perfectly straight with the sword now on fire and the staff having lighting around it they pounced on William.
‘’Bring it on, Scum” Captain William said.
Before they could reach him however a shower of lighting, around ten bolts of lightning went in and out of the demons completely incinerating them in an instant. it was Geoffrey and his librarians.
‘’Are you ok brother William?’’ asked Geoffrey.
William looked around and saw that most beast men were gone and the leader was dead, other than brother Bernard loss this was a victory.
‘’I am as well as one can be considering the situation’’ Said William as looked over at the beheaded corpse of Bernard.
‘’I am sad for our brothers loss too, and we shall gather his gene seed so his legacy can continue, but William I have to tell you something about the chapter master’’ Said Librarian Geoffrey.
William now looking over the battlefield was preparing himself for the worst of news.
‘’What is it brother Librarian?’’ Asked William, Concerned.
Geoffrey then asked him to lean closer.
‘’I have foreseen much death in the lions flagship, and all tough it is not always accurate, I have seen the sons of the Lion killing each other, I am not sure if the enemy tricked one of us or one of us is a traitor but one thing is sure, a Son of the Lion kills another son of the Lion on the ship’’ Explained Geoffrey.
William put his head down trying to process what he had just been told before tuning on his Vox and speaking.
‘’This is captain William, I request a small squad and a Thunder hawk to take me to the lions flagship, NOW!’’ Ordered William.
As the ship arrived and took the captain away Geoffrey sat down and started thinking on seeing the future however this is where his secret comes in, he is a librarian yes, but before anything he is a student, and of what? Of knowledge, of spells, of history, of anything that can grant power and in his personal quest for this he has slipped up.
He did not always have the ability to see the future, but his darkest secret is that he made a deal with an entity for this power, once when his ship was lost in the warp, and the price for every time he uses it is that when he activates it he actually becomes a small portal between the warp and the material realm, so when he uses it he gains immense power but at great risk, so he turns it off before demons can get a lock on him and use him, so he chooses not to use it for the moment but then he notices something weird and voxes the men.
‘’Where are all the dead beast men? Where are the bodies of our brothers? and any dead body for that matter’’ Asked Geoffrey to his men.
The men confused had not noticed the somehow all the bodies had disappeared even their own dead and space marines were gone, no bodies, no blood, just gone, and eerie tone began to set as the sun had gone down.
‘’lights! fire! flame! Anything that creates light turn it on now!” screamed Geoffrey.
He knew what this could mean he knew what type of power could cause this but still he did not want to panic anyone then one by one in the whole city all those spots where the light wouldn’t reach people were dying even space marines were dying in seconds.
‘’They are here’’ said Geoffrey.
The night lords were inside the city, not all infiltrators attacked in the first wave, however the men started to feel anxious scared even, and the space marines began to doubt themselves, they had just heard even space marines yell before they were killed, what could possibly make a space marine scream like that? And even if they did not feel fear the regular way even space marines began to falter, their aim would be off and their reactions would be slow, and one by one groups of space marines and soldiers were being killed and their screams had been recorded and been set on loop for the whole city to hear over and over again.
‘’Stand together! Back to back! Do not falter! We might not know where they are but if we gather up and give them only one target they will have to come for us! Do not look for them! Just prepare yourselves to react and counterattack!’’ Ordered Geoffrey.
Just as he was speaking and giving orders he felt a cold chilling wind behind his head, almost as if someone was speaking but only cold air blew out no words.
‘’But we are right here, Can you not see us?’’ whispered the voice.
As soon as the voice was done speaking the librarian turned around only to see a face that had been twisted beyond recognition, his mouth was sideways, his nose had been split in two, and his eyes were on his forehead, and his eye sockets were empty with nothing in them, and before Geoffrey could attack the thing spoke.
‘’My name is Varrus, I thank you for the bodies, they were a great tithe for my minions and my minions will be enough for you’’ Said Varrus with a twisted smile.
Geoffrey already had his hand full of lightning but before he could shoot it a wave of wind pressure separated all the marines and soldiers who were back to back blowing them a couple of feet back, then on the ground four pentagrams could be seen.
‘’Normally to summon my minions I would need to kill a lot of people, but with the beast men and you guys deaths here is more than enough for this ritual’’ Explained Varrus.
Out of the Four circles a demon emerged one was green with horns chipped off puss running from its mouth and melted wax from its ears while holding a bell on one hand and a rusted sword on the other.
The other demon was blue and had a bird shaped head and wore a blue tabard with a staff on one hand and a shinning sword on the other.
A red demon emerged with two chainaxes, wings, and red tail full of spikes, a horned head and drooling blood.
The last demon was a pinkish purple demon with no arms on its left side but three on its right side, it had a whip, a sword , and a lance and its legs seemed almost animalistic proving how fast it was.
‘’This cannot be’’ said Geoffrey shocked ‘’One cannot summon from all four different aspects of chaos’’ Said the Librarian.
The Chaos summoner smiled and grinned.
‘’Correct! normally one cannot do so, however by offering up so much death, and a part of my own soul, it is very much real just that every time I use this more of my face changes, funny right?’’ Said Varrus with a mocking laughter.
The librarian saw demon after demon coming out of the pentagrams, they were slaughtering his men, his soldiers his brothers, his librarians.
Soon it would just be him so he decided to use his secret to his advantage and instead of trying to see the future he would focus his power on something else.
‘’So you lose something when you use your power? Seems like we are similar’’ Said Geoffrey.
As he spoke demons rushed him however he pulled out his plasma pistol and one by one in one shot he started killing demons coming for him, until the gun was going to explode from so much usage and he threw it to the mob in front of him as the plasma pistol exploded it was shattering demons limbs, and crippling some of them, and killing some of them, yet the demons kept coming, as they got close to the librarian he picked up his staff and clad it in lightning he then turned on his power glove and swung once, and twice until demons in front of him were gone all while making his way up to the pentagrams swinging his massive glove and staff.
‘’Is this what passes by a librarian now a days? What a shame you can barely clad your weapon in psyker energy and you use a gun and a glove? Shame on you, kill him my minions’’ Said Varrus in a disappointed tone.
But the demons could barely scratch him or his armor before the librarian killed them, and then, he finally made it to the pentagrams, he was wounded, he was tired, he was out of breath his armor was scratched and his Power glove was damaged.
‘’Well bravo, you actually made it some what close to me, and? What now? There is still hundreds of demons and you wont reach me on time, and more are still being summoned so what’s the move? you third rate psyker’’ Said Varrus mocking Geoffrey.
The librarian started to breath started to concentrate and closed his eyes before speaking.
‘’ I was not trying to get close to you, I was trying to get close to these circles here, they very much draw my attention’’ Said Geoffrey, eyes still closed, focusing.
The chaos summoner was now interested.
‘’Oh? You think you can undo the circles? I mean in theory you could if you used the warp like me but I doubt it’’ said Varrus.
‘’I don’t ever want to use anything like you do, traitor’’ the librarian then spit blood at the night lords feet.
‘’Well, that was anti-climatic, you can kill him now’’ Said Varrus while ordering his minions to attack.
The librarian smiled and said.
‘’If I focus the power I got from the warp I can see somewhat the future, I always wondered what would happen if I focus my powers but using different aspects of the warp, the things you call gods, are really just different aspects of the warp they are not real beings like you and me’’ Said Geoffrey while preparing himself.
Then Varrus understood finally what the librarian was trying to do by getting closer to the circles and yelled.
‘’No you fool!’’ he said ‘’kill him kill him now befo-‘’
and before he could finish Librarian Geoffrey had already started channeling the power from all four pentagrams as blue, pink, green and red warp energy flowed into him his eyes shone and an extremely heavy pressure of warp energy shot from him, burning all demons close to him injuring those who were further back and even making the ones that were the farthest from him feel it and almost fall from loss of balance.
‘’You fool, what have you done? no one can handle that type of power, wait how are you even alive right now?’’ Said Varrus no genuinely intrigued.
Geoffrey smiled and with shining eyes and electricity surrounding him he spoke in almost a different voice.
‘’You are not the only one with a trick up his sleeve, nor the only one who has given up something for power, what my brothers will call heresy I call a necessity, and you are about to feel all the power of the warp with your own skin’’ Said Librarian Geoffrey.
The night lord could see the librarian was slipping, he was smiling then grinning then angry then almost seemed in pleasure, this man will lose his mind and his soul it was just a matter of time, the night lord then smiled and spoke.
‘’Very well then let me join you in your madness, let me see who can last longer, me with my unlimited minions or you and your crazy thoughts, come Dark Angel let us see which one of us controls the warp better and who will die first’’ Said Varrus now smiling of excitement.
The librarian simply lifted his Power glove and instead of lightning, flames came gushing out the chaos summoner blocked with a minion and shot back with lightning the librarian blocked it my holding out his hand and shooting out a miasma that eroded the lighting, he then focused his warp energy on his legs and as they flashed pinked he was in front of the summoner in an instant, he then clad his fist in lightning and punched the summoner sending him flying several feet until crashing into a wall of the city.
However the librarian looked down and saw his legs started to shake and his arm was bleeding from the impact he had the power of the warp but his body which was once mortal could not handle all this power for long.
‘’What is it you see?!! What do you feel!!?’’ screamed the demon summoner Spitting blood.
As he arose from the rubble his body had been injured but had been healed somehow.
‘’You have not seen all of my tricks, and even some demons can heal did you not know? Now answer me, what do you see?’’ Asked Varrus.
The librarian then screamed and shot lightning and fire at the same time at the summoner, and as he was chasing him down and the summoner was dodging Geoffrey screamed.
‘’ I SEE EVERYTHING!! I KNOW EVERYTHING!!! I AM EVERYTHING!!!! I FEEL EVERYTHING!!’’ the librarian had lost all reason and was now going on pure instinct to destroy his enemy and that’s the only thing that matters to him, destruction.

Diamanchez · March 31

Chapter 7
Invasion

The battle-barge was huge, its name ‘The Lions Fangs’ the main ship of the angels of virtue, they had three battle barges but this was their main headquarters, one had gone down to the planet to provide support, the other had gone to the Lion’s flagship and the main ship was floating above the planet waiting for orders.
Inside just two captains remained, one was captain and tech-marine Mikhail but was unavailable at the moment, the other was captain apothecary Manus who was finishing working on his fellow captain, the room was huge it seemed almost like an armory more than an apothecary table and in the middle Manus had finished his surgery.
‘’That is all I can do for him now’’ Said Manus ‘’The rest will be up to him if he awakens and his body accepts the treatment but that will take time’’ Explained Manus.
The apothecary then walked out and headed to the main bridge, there space marines waited for him only one hundred stayed behind on this ship.
‘’Status report’’ said Manus.
‘’We have lost all communication in the whole solar system, we can see the ships are still broadcasting their signals so the ships are still intact, but we do not know the status inside the ships or the planets’’ said the space marine.
Apothecary Manus grabbed the data slate and looked over the report.
‘’Damn those night lords jamming everything and I cannot leave the ship, I need to oversee the final touches of brother Mikhail's treatment’’ Manus said angrily.
Just as Manus was going to ask for more reports the signals on the ship started flashing claxons started sounding and staff began moving.
‘’Sir take a look at this’’ said the space marine.
A video showed up on the bridge and it was three massive ships coming towards them.
‘’What’s the report on them?’’ asked Manus.
‘’All three have identified with the night lords code however we cannot scan for any Astartes heartbeats, instead we are receiving accounts of multiple wild and savage heartbeats almost like every ship has thousands of wild animals’’ Reported the space marine.
Manus turned to the screen and squinted.
‘’Beast men’’ he said and spat on the floor in disgust.
He started signaling his men to prepare for battle and to get in position in case they were to be boarded.
‘’I do not want them even a chance to board our holy ship given to us by the God emperor, but one cannot be too sure, now prepare to fire full power to the guns begin barrage as soon as you are able and fire at will!’’ ordered Manus.
And thus in a couple of minutes the space ship started shaking and rumbling from each knockback, from each shot the ship fired, in minutes the beast men ships started to form a straight line one ship behind the other so the first ship would take most of the attack then the second and the third would receive the least damage.
‘’Focus all fire on the first ship then focus on the second then on the third do not shoot at all three at the same time or their last ship will reach us’’ Said Manus.
And his orders were followed instantly and fired focused from ship to ship but it was too late the first ship had already fallen as pieces of metal and dead bodies floated with limbs and internal organs being frozen with their blood in the vacuum of space the second ship had just started losing altitude and was falling however the third ship which was on fire for most of the front part was still going forward.
‘’Focus extra cannons on the engines and brace for impact!!’’ screamed Manus.
The third ship made it to the Lions Fangs and actually crashed into it, however the ship then shifted power to its engines pulled back and then redirected power to front cannons and obliterated the third ship and everyone on it.
‘’is that all? Give me a status report now’’ Ordered Manus.
‘’We have received damage in front of the ship, thirty percent of our guns are down and twenty percent of our engines blew up from the sudden strain on them pulling back, and around fifty percent of the barracks and lounge area was destroyed or damaged, overall we are operating within fifty five percent of our capacity but our gene-seed vault our weapons vault and our main monastery with our relics are all intact’’ said a tech-marine.
‘’How long before we could move or engage in battle if I was to order it?’’ Asked Manus.
The tech marine then started running calculations in his Helmet and answered.
‘’Approximately twelve hours my Lord’’ He answered.
Manus slammed his hand angrily on the bridge table and spoke.
‘’Damn it! Now we cant reinforce either battle field, twelve hours could be enough to finish this battle we must gather whatever ships we can and split up and then got to each of the battlefi-‘’
Before he could finish he was interrupted again with red sirens and claxons.
‘’What now? Another ship? Focus fire we have to destroy it quickly I doubt they have another three ships with thousands of enemies so what is it?’’ asked Manus.
‘’Sir the current alarm is off but not for an outside attack’’ said the tech-marine.
‘’What the :cuss: do you mean?’’ asked Manus who was pretty much fed up with the whole situation they were so close to finding the Lion yet he was now stuck on the ship without being able to help.
‘’Sorry my Lord what I meant was the alarms have gone off in the lower decks it seems the ship is being invaded’’ said the tech marine.
‘’By the throne’’ exclaimed Manus ‘’how is this possible? We saw all the ships burn and fall, report now!’’ he yelled.
‘’I’ve ran diagnostics on the ship and it seems that all of those thousands of beast men and three ships were only a diversion and in the rubble and destruction of two small ships flew into our cargo bay and began the invasion there’’ Said the tech marine as he looked at Manus’s angry face.
Manus started looking at the cameras and saw that one by one they were being turned off, shot off or simply froze on the same frame.
‘’Night lords’’ said Manus in a grim tone ‘’Now we prepare! shut off all floors emergency shut down send reinforcements to the gene seed vault to the monastery and the armory now!’’ he ordered.
As he tried to walk away and head to the vaults himself all the lights went out and darkness took over, the main bridge the only light that was in the room came from the moon of the planet and only a part of the room was visible Manus ran towards the light and yelled.
‘’On me!! Now!!’’ He ordered.
All space marines gathered on him however as they ran towards him some were heard yelling, some were heard struggling against something.
Something was killing them, something was attacking them, then there was only silence, in the bridge only metal footsteps were heard and body parts started sliding at Manus, feet first arms, then legs then, torsos and at the end the heads of his brothers were being thrown and slit towards him and his small circle of men and soldiers.
‘’Take aim and shoot whatever moves shoot it’’ ordered Manus as he unholstered his Pistol.
Shots could be seen as small muzzles of flash flooded the bridge and they shot at anything they could see and then all they could hear was.
‘’help….me……brothers….’’ Said a voice from the darkness.
They all aimed where the voice was coming from but Manus raised his hand and told them to hold fire, and from the shadows first a head of a space marine was visible, then a shoulder, then the chest, and then the stomach.
However that’s where the space marine ended from the waist down he was cut in half and was bleeding out but could still barely speak while coughing blood and then from behind him you could see a figure pale white skin and black eyes with sharpened teeth grinning and smiling and it spoke.
‘’My name is Gendor, I come on behalf of My Lord Kurtz’’ The traitor said.
He then proceeded to throw the dying space marine at Manus feet where it gave a final grasp of air and died.
‘’Help…me….brothers…’’ the space marines and Manus heard again.
But their brother was already dead then they saw the traitor looking at them with a Vox recording on his hand.
‘’I apologize I was going to listen to that later I guess it was on speaker, I was sent here for your geneseed so if you all stay here and just die it would be great’’ said the night lord as it grinned.
‘’You Fiend!!’’ screamed Manus ‘’Die here? The only one dying here today is you ill make an oath to all the people you have killed that I will end you one way or another’’ Said Manus.
The night lord stopped smiling and spoke.
‘’I guess nothing in this life is easy I was saving this for later but oh well I am a bit of a glutton sometimes”
He then proceeded to pull out another recording but this time there was a different voice on it.
‘’This is an order from my Lord Kurtz the longer I go without his orders the more fulfilled I feel when I hear them and complete them so lets see what he said to do besides getting the gene seed’’ Said Gendor.
The night lord starts listening to the recording for a couple of seconds and the out of nowhere drops to the floor but in pain? Confusion? Anger? Desperation? Failure? No it was clear what he was feeling once he started reliving himself in front of everyone he now smelled of piss and waste and was drooling on the floor.
‘’YES YES MY LORD KURTZ I HAVE DONE IT I HAVE MADE THESE ANGELS FEEL FEAR YES YES MY LORD I HAVE CAUSED THEM TO BE ANGRY AT ME YES MY LORD I AM THE DISTRACTION THEY WILL NEVER LEAVE HERE AND NEVER OBSTRUCT YOUR PLANS YES YES MY LORD I HAVE FULFILLED THIS ORDER YEEESS!!’’ Yelled Gendor in euphoria.
As he was still twisting on the floor, Manus had enough and opened fire with his plasma pistol however the night lord was no longer there he had moved quickly too quickly for a regular Astartes, this night lord had some chaos powers they needed to be careful of.
‘’Oh well, I thought I could enjoy this a bit more, ill just kill you all now and then get the gene seed and feel this way again’’ said Gendor from the shadows.
There was only twenty space marines left along with thirty guardsmen and Manus knew he had to act quick he turned spoke to five space marines and gave them an order.
‘’I need you to move Mikhail they cannot find him before his final touches we need him to survive go now and take him to these coordinates’’ Ordered Manus.
As the space marines nodded and tried to run out of the room a flash of a power sword lit up and chased them only to be stopped by Manus own sword in time before they were killed.
“I can smell you, traitor’’ Said Manus.
The night lord smiled and stepped back into the shadows and one by one he struck, each time killing one soldier or one space marine, each time they would try to shoot in the dark, but could not get a read on him they could not pin him down or hit him, his reflexes were too fast and in the end it was Manus alone in the dark withy a little bit of light left.
‘’You are all alone are you not scared? Are you not anxious? Do you not feel insecure?’’ said Gendor.
He struck with his sword from down low to his legs, Manus dodged and attacked with his sword and missed.
‘’You are quick, but unless your attack is perfect and unseen you yourself do not cause much damage, that is why you use the shadows’’ Said Manus.
Gendor again struck from different angles but none were enough to strike a decisive blow on Manus.
‘’What is this? How can you know my move? I am quicker than you and you should not be able to react!!’’ said the night lord in a fit of rage he opened fire from a bolter pistol and Manus dodged and saw the muzzle fire.
‘’I see you now, it seems the one who is scared is you from not understanding what’s going on’’ Said Manus.
The night lord yelled and screamed like a shriek, as he rushed the apothecary right from above thinking his strike was perfect, believing he would win, thinking no one could react in time, all he saw was Manus looking up at him almost as if he knew exactly what he was thinking.
Manus then ducked down as if preparing to jump and did so upwards with his chainsword aimed right for the night lord’s chest, he pierced his chest cavity, and his lungs and internal organs.
All were shredded by the chainsword as organs blood and viscera fell on top of Manus, the night lord focused his remaining energy and tried one final stab at the apothecary.
Manus noticed this and barely dodged but the blade had reached his left shoulder he then threw the night lord down, he was choking, and could barely breathe, he could not move he was done, he was going to die.
‘’How?....how… did I lose?’’ asked Gendor.
The apothecary stood up above him and started cleaning his chainsword with the night lords cape.
‘’The God emperor has provided me with a lot of knowledge on how to heal my brothers, but if need be I have also been shown how to kill Astartes’’ said Manus as he lifted his left hand pointed to the Reductor on his hand ‘’This looks like a drill to most people however for us its like a needle needed to penetrate our skin so we can be treated, but in your case, you coward, you are not an Astartes you are a shell of one so I have no need to fight you with honor or courage’’ Said Manus.
The night lord was struggling to breathe and could no longer speak but he could hear.
‘’Right, you don’t have much time so I will keep it simple, when you went after my men I noticed that your super reaction only counts to things you can see you want to know how I know? Its because you saw me rushing you and reacted but you did not see the small injection, this Reductor also has a sedative to capture Astartes alive that have gone berserk or traitors for questioning’’ Explained Manus.
The night lords eyes started opening wide as he finally understood what happened.
‘’I see you understood, I made you slower by giving you a sedative it took a while to take effect and you killed all my brothers before it could take effect, which I did not count for, and well you covered in piss and filth made it easier to track you, now that you were slow, and in your head it seemed like I got faster and reacted quicker but in reality you were just slower’’ Said Manus.
The night lord made an angry face and seemed like it was trying to get up not before a huge shadow loomed over his head.
It was the Boot of Manus, right above his head, and before he could move the Foot slammed down completely crushing the skull of the night Lord, brain matter bone and blood splattering all over the floor from the stomp.
‘’I told you, you were the one that was going to die today’’ Said Manus.
He then treated his wounds and started running towards the gene seed vault while speaking on his Vox to see if anyone would answer, however no one did, he ran as fast as he could and in about twenty minutes he had finally reached the front of the gene seed vault.
It smelled like rotten flesh, death, and blood all from the hallway as he saw two night lord figures in front the vault he saw twenty night lords bodies dead and around fifty angels dead as well, and with them there was the five space marines Manus had ordered to flee, there was also more fighting going on throughout the ship but Manus could not call for any back he would need to fight a two vs one scenario.
‘’Are you almost done Kheron? I mean how hard can it be to open a gate to a gene seed vault?’’ Said a hooded night lord with a drill similar to Manus on his glove and a rusty sword on the other hand.
‘’Do not rush me Talos’’ said the kneeled figure who was trying to open a vault ‘’You know these particular angels have a lot of secrets and is not easy to open the gates not like your job is hard you are just going to use this gene seed for experiments or selling them to Fabius Bile’’ Said Kheron.
As wires were coming out of his back like tentacles he had two what seemed to be bodies of people folded in his back, and then with a signal the two bodies fell and started unfolding as bones cracked, skin tore, and blood gushed out he ordered the servitors to help with the unlocking and they got to work.
‘’Well well well, we have company Kheron’’ said Talos.
As he turned to face Manus while holding gene seed he had extracted from the fallen angels.
‘’And it seems he is a medic, how lucky for us, he must know the password, you keep doing that while I try to beat the answer out of him’’ Said Talos.
The other chaos space marine just nodded and continued working but the battle had begun, Manus was in no mood for anything no more time for thinking, for planning, all he had in his head was fury, for an apothecary to see someone defile his brothers gene seed it was the ultimate heresy.
‘’I will kill you!!!’’ screamed Manus.
Talos attacked first as the got in range sparks flew from the clashes of swords and once and twice and thrice the swords met, sparks flying and then Manus started coughing.
‘’Ah, I see it finally took effect, you see my blades rust goes into the air with each strike and you have been inhaling them now you will have trouble breathing’’ said Talos while smiling.
‘’It does not matter, the God Emperor provides’’ said Manus.
Coughing blood now, he rushed and tried to attack then Talos dodged backwards, Manus pulled out his plasma gun and opened fire Talos was able to dodge and get close and once he was going to attack Manus threw the gun at his chest the gun now about to explode from over firing, detonated and sent Manus flying back covered in smoke he rose up and Noticed the other night lord still had not moved.
Had he not seen his partner was dead? As he tried to walk past the smoke of the burnt Talos, a hand filled with puss, blood and bone marrow reached out to him and out of instinct he stroke it.
‘’Wrong move’’ said Talos.
As the arms that was being cut by the chainsword splattered green mucus all over manus right arm all the way to his elbow.
“”AAAGGGHH!!!’’ screamed Manus.
The pain was unbearable, but he knew it was not over, so in an instant he took his sword on his other hand and cut off most of his infected arm he fell to the floor in pain.
‘’Well that was kind of smart, but I can just infect you again you know?’’ said Talos.
His limbs were healing from the explosion but it was all being replaced with decaying flesh, he then kicked Manus several times until pushing him onto the gate of the gene-seed vault.
‘’Hey be careful with that, i am still working here’’ said Kheron.
Talos simply smiled and got closer to Manus.
‘’Can you please tell me the password before I infect you? If you start cutting off too much of yourself I wont be able to get an answer you know?’’ Said Talos in a teasing tone ‘’Well I see you still think you have a chance’’ he proceeds to press his foot on Manus chest ‘’look at me and look behind me see if this breaks your spirit’’ Said Talos.
As Manus focuses behind the night lord where he had just come from he could see at least Fifty night lords coming with servitors and weapons ready to hack the vault and kill anyone else and they all had adorned their waist with the skulls of Angels of Virtue they had just killed.
‘’Your ship is ours, your men are dead, your leaders will die, the planet is ours, make this easier and just open the damn vault’’ Said Talos.
Manus could not believe what he was seeing, he could no believe what he was about to do, but he had a thought, he had hope, and overall he had faith.
Even so, he started walking slower and slower towards the control panel then Kharon stepped back and started laughing with all the other night lords.
‘’Where is your God emperor now? Does he still protect? HAHAHAH’’ Kharon laughed at him.
Manus said nothing just continued to walk and finally reached the panel and started putting in the codes looking down and defeated he had only one thing to say.
‘’Yes, the God Emperor protects’’ Said Manus
Yes, he had been enlightened after spending time with the sororitas however, every time he would say anything about the God emperor he always took logic into account to and if what he told the five space marines to do was followed to the letter then the God Emperor would indeed provide.
‘’Now we shall move to the armory for their tech and weapons once we are done here with the gene-seed understood Talos?’’ said Kheron.
Then the giant gate started opening slowly, steam and vapor like fumes coming from it, the smell of oil and metal and the faint sound of something rumbling could be heard.
‘’This is the gene seed vault correct?’’ asked Talos as he saw the gate opening.
All the other night lords had already gathered fifty Astartes ready to invade the holy place of the gene-seed of the Angels of virtue, and then just as the gate was finishing opening and the lights were about to turn on Kheron Spoke.
‘’Of course it is, you doubt my tech? before cutting off sonar radars and communication I ran a full scan of the ship and all the gene-seed is here, now lets hurry and do this so we can mov-‘’
The sentence never finished and a chance to finish it would not come again for he has dead, in an instant his head been turned to nothing but a puddle of blood on the floor, then the torso, then the rest of him in what seemed to be three shots from some high tech weapon.
It was revealed to be something else, it had come from the gene-seed vault itself, was it the defense system? Turrets? Ai? More Astartes? Simple militia with high tech weapons? The fact is most staff and space marines were busy fighting on the ship and this right here was the most empty spot on the ship after everyone there and on the bridge had died all that was there was the night lords and apothecary Manus opening the gate but also inside stood what seemed to be a giant to even an Astartes, sixteen feet tall the metal being stood almost as big as the gate of the vault itself.
It had sharp lines and flat surfaces like all other Dreadnoughts, its heavy ceramite chest-plate shone in the light and its piston gauntlet on his left side was twitching, almost as if moving on its own, on his right hand there was only a Onslaught Heavy Gatling cannon and it was starting to spin almost as if it could fire at any moment, and over his left shoulder he had a macro plasma incinerator strong enough to melt tanks, and it too was taking aim.
‘’You shall not pass, and you shall not leave here alive’’ spoke Mikhail with a holy-machine voice booming from the Chassis.
Unsettling and distorted yet it had respect with its tone it had an aura of aggression around its words, This was brother Mikhail he had been given the iron sleep and been transformed into a dreadnought he was now in the chest mounted sarcophagus its box-like tomb and with most of his limbs cut off he had to control everything with his mind.
But he could still feel his arms and legs like if he had them and with a thudding stomp and a thunderous step it moved forward, the Night lords knew they only had one chance, to attack they had to kill this Space marine for the hallway was too long if they ran back where they came from they would be shot down by the Gatling gun and so they jumped all over the place the jumped left and right, up and down, sideways and vertical moving all over the place, Talos tried to retreat however he was the first to feel the fire of plasma cannon on Mikhail’s shoulder.
He was turned into a pile of goo instantly, then the Gatling fire swept the room from left to right and as the night lords were killed some did reach him but this was a tech marine inside a dreadnought, and by them having more connection to the machine-spirits he was able to control it better move faster and react quicker, some night lords did shoot did hit and did scrape his armor however Brother Mikhail had predicted all this he had ran calculations and knew which hits he could take which shots he could endure and which areas he could leave open.
It was almost as if watching something out of a children’s book it was unreal the speed as to which this giant was moving was not realistic, yet it was so yet Mikhail ran through night lords, its Gatling gun still firing its fist crushing night lords in one hit, some were swing left end sent flying as their limbs could be seen twisted in ways they were not supposed to bend, the power from tons of metal and speed coming at you with no mercy was unbelievable he would swing down and whichever unlucky soul was caught in his wrath was completely turned to a puddle of blood and organs.
And if you were close the impact on the ground from his fist would put you off balance just long enough for his Gatling fire to shower you with rounds as big as your torso, no night lords knew how to react no one was expecting this their captains were gone, and so they did one final push and with the twenty night lords left they all turned on their jumpacks and started jumping randomly to confuse the giant however Mikhail had already been taking aim.
You heard his engine revving, you could see massive clouds of smoke coming from the exhaust, and you could see his core shining in the back he was straining, he was focusing, he was forcing something.
‘’Die you traitors’’ Said Mikhail.
And for a moment what were traitor Astartes flying above the giant looked not like warriors but small bats flying around in a small cave, and Mikhail he looked like a turret, a weapon of destruction, built just for these bats, the Gatling gun opened fire non-stop until the barrel was orange and almost melted his left hand which was a claw had a hole in the middle that started spewing fire a giant flamethrower aiming all who were close around him.
The night lords were being mowed down like animals, every shot shattered a limb, every shot melted a face, or exploded a head, and the last ten night lords flew up the plasma cannon on Mikhail shoulder lit-up and what can only fire once and then recharge, shot five shots back to back completely obliterating the traitors on the roof of the Ship.
And with that the slaughter was done, the traitors were dead, and Mikhail stopped moving for minutes, he needed his body and weapons to cool down he pushed himself to the limit but he had won.
‘’Its good to see you again Brother’’ said Manus while coughing blood.
The giant turned and with a shaking of the hall every time he walked he went over to Manus.
‘’The feeling is mutual Brother, sorry I could not arrive sooner it seems granting me the iron sleep took longer than expected’’ Said Mikhail.
Manus stood up grunting and with a pace of an old man, he was injured, missing an arm, missing a heart, and was severely tired however he was alive and functional.
‘’The God Emperor provides’’ said Manus admiring the Dreadnought.
‘’What now Manus?’’ asked the voice through the Vox.
Manus then started looking at slate on the vault looking at cameras and assessing the situation.
‘’For now there is still over fifty night lords on the ship all scattered and knowing them it won’t be easy to kill them quickly’’ Said Manus.
Mikhail was already running calculations in his metal suit.
‘’I can do it in hours’’ Said the dreadnought with no hesitation.
‘’Is that so? Well let’s get to it then we need to clear the ship’’
said Manus.
‘’And then?’’ asked Mikhail.
‘’And then brother we shall go to the planet to help William, Bernard and Geoffrey and then to the lions ship to help Rickus’’ Said Manus.
The dreadnought stood quiet for a second.
‘’Since I have been in here I have been able to notice that I can get a stronger signal than most radars, there is a message from Librarian Geoffrey it was sent hours ago’’ Explained Mikhail.
Manus leaned in to hear the message.
‘’By the God Emperor, we must hurry Mikhail’’ Exclaimed Manus.
The dreadnought seemed like it was about to move but there was another message this time this one had just come in, it was from Chapter master Rickus and so the two captains listened.
‘’Brother Manus, if what Rickus says it accurate, we must hurry’’ Said Mikhail.
The apothecary ran and the dreadnought behind sprinted him with thunderous noise and powerful stomps almost denting the floor of the ship, the situation was dire, but it would become dire still.

Edited March 31 by Diamanzo

Diamanchez · April 1

Chapter 8
Revelations

The space is small, crowded almost, thirty space marines sit in the Thunderhawk, it is exiting the atmosphere at two thousand km per hour yet the angels barely feel a thing.
‘’We will arrive in a couple of hours sir’’ Spoke the pilot on the vox of the ship.
‘’Understood, give the signal when we are two minutes before landing’’ Said William.
The ship moving at full speed, rumbled its engine and jolted in space towards the Lions ship, the space marines were all handpicked by captain William himself, he had fought and trained with them for two years, not all were primaris but he trusted them all equally and valued their virtues for battle they did not know what the situation was in the planet where they had left Librarian Geoffrey.
Nor did they know about their main flagship being invaded they just prepared themselves for the worst and at the same time hoped and believed that whatever was on the ship will help them find the Lion.
‘’Two minutes to land my lord’’ spoke a space marine beside William.
‘’Brothers, we are closer to our destiny than ever before in the thousands of years this chapter has existed none have come closer than us, all this resistance, all this death ,all these enemies, proves this, for if this was easy this would not be our destiny at all’’ He put his helmet on and locked it in ‘’For we are sons of the Lion and we will find him!!’’ screamed William.
The space marines saluted.
‘’For the lion!’’ they shouted.
The Thunderhawk gave a signal it was landing but not before all space marines could watch the feed and there it was, a monument to humanity, a twenty six km long, bigger than even Lord Guilimans flagship, ‘The invincible reason’ its name just blasted in your head once you saw it, it was as if witnessing geological event unfold in front of you.
The main thing you could see was its Grand Processional, the spine of the ship a tunnel so vast it could fit heavy landers and armies could march through its length, and its color was cold, you could feel it cold as iron, it was almost as if a dark sharpened slab of the home world of Caliban itself was transplanted in the stars.
All angels of virtue remembered the stories of it, that when it arrived on the battlefield it did not merely enter the system, the Invincible Reason annexed the void, a twenty-six-kilometer spear of obsidian and ancient, forgotten steel, it dwarfed the escorts that clustered like parasites around its hull.
There was no prayer echoing from its Vox-grilles, only the low, thrumming growl of a reactor that had tasted the blood of the thousand years of traitors.
‘’And here we shall finally find our gene father’’ said William in a soft tone.
Then just as they were making way for the docks they received signals of a battle taking place.
‘’It cannot be’’ said William.
The signals were coming from the ship, the night lords were already there.
‘’Full speed ahead! I don’t care if the ship blows up I don’t need a way back we just need to help our brothers!’’ screamed William.
The pilot went ahead and used all the fuel all the reserve and pushed the ship to its limit, it barely arrived in one piece at the landing bay, as it did and the space marines left the transport they could see the aftermath of a recent battle, dead bodies of both night lords and angels of virtue were on the floor, all dead, some gutted others shot, and others had entry wounds from behind signs of assassination, then they heard gunshots coming from one of the hallways.
‘’lets go, you five stay here and try to find more answers and look for a ship to leave in case we need to evacuate’’ ordered William to five space marines.
They nodded and left to look for more clues and a ship, then William took off.
He arrived at the sight of five angels being decimated by two night lords but before the last angel fell William had intervened, he stopped the lightning claw with his sword the night lord grinned as it stepped back and pushed forward again.
William simply ignored him by sidestepping and letting the night lord through, he had seen that the other traitor was still aiming for the wounded angel, and thus William opened bolter fire point blank almost.
Hitting once in the neck then twice in the chest and right forearm, the night lord fell before the strike could land on the angel and William knew that the other traitor was already bouncing back for him, he knew the aim would be his hearts, just the night lord tried to put his claws into Williams back the captain turned with power sword in hand and deflected the blow the night lord was already swinging with his other claw from his other hand he knew William could not swing another sword he still had his pistol and could not aim in time.
The night lord could already savor and feel William’s blood on his claw but such feeling did not come, instead he felt a sharp pain coming from the bottom of his face, he could feel his bottom sharpened teeth digging into his upper gums, and his lips being ripped from something hard striking at his chin, it was a kick, he had to get low to strike and William did not miss this.
With one hand with a gun and the other one just parrying an attack he had no option but to kick him in the chin and as the night lord’s head was sent flying back and he fell, he tried to get up, only to be met with a barrel of bolter pistol aiming down at him.
‘’wai-‘’ tried to say the traitor.
Then a single gunshot was heard and the night lords head was splattered all across the wall.
‘’Are you okay brother?’’ asked William to the surviving space marine ‘’Can you tell me what happened?’’ He asked.
The space marine nodded and began to speak.
‘’Yes captain, thank you my lord, I could not have survived that these enemies are like nothing like we have ever faced especially the big one’’ Explained The space marine.
William turned and saw there was blood coming form the opposite hallway where the space marine had come running from.
‘’The big one? Did he let you escape?’’ Asked William.
The space marine gulped his saliva and spoke but more carefully.
‘’Yes my lord he seems like he should be in terminator armor not in regular space marine armor, he moves to quick for his size too, and after killing most of us he let a few escape so we could ‘feel fear’ according to him’’ Said the space marine visibly shook.
‘’And what of the chapter master? And captain Oswin?’’ Asked William in a serious tone.
The space marine was sweating under his helmet.
‘’Chapter master Rickus took a small team and went to the vault to follow the signal he ordered Oswin and us to clear the ship, but Oswin acted weird, and took a handful of men and ordered us to keep going and that’s when we encountered the giant’’ Explained the survivor space marine.
William looked at the space marines face and saw that he was tired, beat up, shock and possibly scared if such a thing was possible, but lying he was not.
‘’Good job surviving brother, go to the docks I’ve left some men there join them and wait further orders’’ Said William.
The angel nodded and left for the docks.
‘’And we, we shall hunt this beast ourselves’’ William said as he ordered the men to follow him.
As they arrived in a large domed structured room it was originally used as meeting point where the Lion and his troops would discuss public and private matters with their soldiers and amongst each other.
It was huge it could fit thousands of Astartes, the walls were tall almost as If it was another place all together, and right down the middle towards the wall and the end of the room was a chair where the Lion would sit, but on it was not a primarch but something similar in size at least, the space marine was huge almost as big as Lord Guiliman he had blue armor and the night lord emblem in his chest, his head covered, all his face and his shoulders were massive, on his left shoulder guard he had the night lords wings and on the right shoulder guard he had a name ‘Vladius’ it read.
The traitor space marine had only one weapon, a massive great sword almost as big as himself, as wide and thick as his arm, such a thing should not be moved as a weapon it almost seemed more like a paddle or small finger from some giant mechanism, but It was a sword none the less just laying across his shoulders.
Then lights fluttered and the room could be seen better and all around the traitor around sixty angels of virtue lay dead, all cut in some form either clean in half, or down the middle, through the shoulder, and out the waist or vice versa, head cut cleaned off, limbs cut cleaned off, nobody had one minor injury it was all done in one strike each time this traitor swung his sword, angels died.
‘’Welcome, sons of the Lion’’ Said Vladius smiling under his helmet sitting calmly ‘’I was beginning to fall asleep, none of these were a challenge none could even be worthy of being taken as trophies or experiments’’ Said Vladius.
William was upset, he was beyond furious, as he stepped forward, but he felt something strange from this warrior, not only its size but something else, so he decided to approach carefully.
‘’Laurels?’’ said the traitor in an excited noise ‘’None of these guys had those, are you special? Are you a captain? Sorry its been thousands of years I cant really keep up with everyone’s hierarchy, well since you are special ill treat you differently’’ said Vladiusas he stood up.
Now standing he was even larger, he cast a shadow over the space marines almost as if a moon would eclipse a sun.
‘’I am Vladius champion of the night lords, and I will be your end’’ Said Vladius.
The traitor ducked as if to jump up but instead jumped forward, with the full speed of a motorbike or a space ship in high gear and then bodies fell, limbs flew, angels died.

The vault was massive, the doors were huge, the banners still laid intact all over, there was Dark Angel relics and its story and in the middle was the whole reason they had come, where the signal led on the floor there was identification sensor, when the glove of the Lion would touch this it would open and something would show up, the Lion himself, or a map to him or his last known whereabouts at least this is what Chaplain Rickus Hoped.
‘’Why did you abandon the main force and join me Oswin?’’ asked Rickus.
Oswin looking around the are almost as if paranoid stopped for a second and spoke.
‘’I saw something that worried me and I believed it better to follow you, besides you sent a distress signal of maximum importance saying night lords were here when we arrived, reinforcements should be here at some point don’t worry about the main force’’ explained Oswin.
Rickus somewhat satisfied with the answer continued to walk and ordered the men to spread out about twenty space marines were with him along with his neophyte.
‘’Oswin we will finally see the end of our journey and finally find the Lion’’ Said Rickus who seemed to ignore the fact that there was still night lords on the ship, such was his obsession with the Lion.
The captain did not answer for a second thinking of what to say.
‘’I believe that we should first see what we find before anything brother’’ said Oswin.
‘’What else could there be? We have lost so much, so much death, so many sacrifices, so much blood, so many mistakes, all for this, we must believe, I believe the Lion is here or at the very least this will lead us to him’’ Said Rickus.
Oswin seeing an opportunity and knowing his brother for a long time did not miss this chance to ask the question he wanted an answer to the most.
‘’If we are at the end why not reveal a secret to me? If we have finished our purpose our chapter will tell all its secrets this is what Grand Maste Azrael told me when I became captain, I also know that the chapter master always has more than one secret, so how about it brother? If you are so sure this is the end why not tell me just me what’s so special about your neophyte? Or do you not trust your own judgement?’’ Oswin asked looking at Rickus directly in the eyes.
The chaplain started back at him and said.
‘’Very well brother, only because its you, the one I’ve known the longest, and the one who had served chapter master Godfrey with me, only because our history, and only because you are also related to this secret’’ Said Rickus.
Oswin looked shocked and intrigued and nodded as they got closer and spoke with their Vox off, and here we learn of one of the chapter masters secrets, the identity of his neophyte.
‘’Oswin do you have data on all the on thousand soldiers in our chapter?’’ asked Rickus.
‘’Yes brother I always have one of my soldiers carry data slates with that info in case we need to review something in the field why?’’ Asked Oswin.
Rickus put his hand out and waited for a slate to come to him, Oswin ordered the data brought forward and then dismissed the space marine that had brought it and then Rickus started pointing at the list of names.
‘’Neophytes don’t get a name until becoming a full space marine in our chapter, so no one really knows which data belong to which neophyte but me and the apothecary’’ said Rickus ‘’choose this one and tell me what you see’’ He said as he pointed to a neophyte on the slate.
Oswin grabbed the data and began to look without leaving nothing out of sight and everything was normal until he reached the part of the gene seed and who it had been extracted from.
‘’You didn’t, you couldn’t have, you really are crazy you know that Rickus?’’ Said Oswin Still in shock.
Chaplain Rickus signaled his neophyte to come over and the young learner rushed over.
‘’Yes my lord?’’ he said.
Rickus looked at Oswin and then looked back at the neophyte.
‘’Tell him your name, the one I told you I shall grant you once you become a full fledged Angel, and then remove your helmet and look into captain Oswin’s eyes’’ Said Rickus.
The young neophyte first removed his helmet and his face was nothing shocking, everything was normal, but his eyes, the eyes he held, the look he gave, and the stare he would give out it was all too well known to both Oswin and Rickus.
‘’I have no name for I am not worthy of one but on what chapter master Rickus has told me and what he says about my gene seed and my predecessor, once my training is complete my name shall be Godfrey like the previous chapter master’’ Said the Neophyte.
Rickus then dismissed the neophyte to go back to formation and turned back to Oswin and spoke.
‘’Yes brother I told everyone that our leaders gene seed had not been able to be recovered, but I lied, I asked Manus to hide it and then when the recruitment process came we used it and tracked down the neophyte and took him under my wing, Azrael was furious but forgave me and made me promise to provide success in exchange for the secret’’ Rickus proceeded to walk to the middle of the room.
And before he put the lions glove to open the secret they wanted to see he turned his head and asked Oswin.
‘’What about you brother? Will you reveal your secret to me?’’ Asked Rickus with a slight smile.
The captain looked downward and smiled.
‘’That’s not fair brother, I only have one secret if I tell you it I would have none however all I can say is that the reason I left two hundred years ago did have to do with my secret’’ explained Oswin.
‘’Very well, it matters little at this point, I just wish to show our previous chapter master even with other eyes in another body and another mind, the Lion himself, that way we can finally fulfill our destiny’’ Said Rickus.
He put the gauntlet on the floor and it opened and from the middle emerged a tall glass bigger than themselves rose covered in vapor and steam none could see clearly what was in it looked like a figure like a shadow like someone in stasis or so Rickus thought, but it was not.
‘’No, it cannot be’’ said Rickus.
As they looked more clearly it was the Lions old armor helmet and everything but no Lion and in the middle there was a vox recording, this had to be worth it, thought the chapter master, as he unlocked the glass shelf and reached in the vox began to play automatically.
‘’This is grand master Azrael of the Dark Angels, if you are truly our gene-father, my men will help you locate where and when you are, along with a supply route, do as you please’’ Said the recording.
Rickus fell to his knees shocked and crushed, the anger he felt at first disappeared, in an instant as he was overcome with disappointment, and sadness but he had no time to dwell on anything, for he soon felt what to him seemed like a hammer across his face but it had been Oswins fist that had clobbered him to the ground not a hammer.
‘’ALL THIS DEATH! ALL THIS SACRIFICE! ALL THIS FOR NOTHING!!!’’ Oswin Screamed.
He went to pick up Rickus who was already up and was ready to receive his attacks, Oswin with no mercy kicked the wind out of the chaplain.
‘’YOU AND YOURE :cuss:ING SECRETS!!! YOU WILL BE THE END OF US!!! IF YOU WOULD HAVE JUST TOLD GRAND MASTER AZRAEL WE HAD FOUND A GLOVE TO THE SIGNAL OF HIS SHIP HE WOULD HAVE TOLD YOU WHAT THIS WAS AND SO MUCH DEATH COULD HAVE BEEN AVOIDED!!’’ yelled Oswin at the top of his lungs as he was going to reach to pick Rickus.
The chaplain jumped up and headbutted Oswin straight in the face he removed his mask and spat blood and yelled
‘’AND I WOULD DO IT AGAIN IF I DIDN’T KNOW ANY BETTER!! WE ARE NOT DARK ANGELS WE ARE THE ANGELS OF VIRTUE AND OUR ONLY PURPOSE IS THE LION!!! NOTHING ELSE MATTERS!!!’’ yelled the chapter master.
Both warriors were interrupted by a message from a tech marine that was with them that had been analyzing the ship he spoke loudly as otherwise he would have been ignored.
‘’My Lords!’’ The tech marine said.
‘’WHAT!?’’ Yelled both Oswin and Rickus at the same time, without looking at the tech marine.
The tech marine now nervous swallowed his saliva and prepared to talk, even if it might cost him his life.
‘’It seems the Supreme Grand master had left two hundred ‘Black shields’ to guard this ship and its arsenal for the Lions return in case he did return’’ Reported the tech marine.
Oswin and Rickus were still locked in each other’s sight, brows frowning and jaw clinching tight from the anger.
‘’So where are they? If they are dead should the Supreme Grand Master nor be here already?’’ Said Oswin finally looking away from Rickus and back to the marine.
‘’From my reports sir, our brothers tried to take over the planet to use a secondary base, but the orbital defense system killed them all, the ship is in cold sleep mode, the engines barely lit, it sends signals to the chapter master, if it speeds up or turns off he gets warnings on his armor, since the ship is still on and he didn’t expect to make contact with our brothers I am assuming he assumes its still safe’’ Said the tech marine.
‘’It still does not make sense, why would he hide our gene fathers vessel?’’ Asked Oswin while looking at the tech marine and then Rickus who was just quiet, staring into the wall.
‘’It seems the inquisition wanted the armory for study, based on log records some inquisitors were on board months ago, and our last brothers signal was weeks ago’’ Explained the tech marine.
‘’Well either way, we have the ship now, its best to report this to the main chapter and proceed from there’’ Said Oswin.
Rickus was still angry was still in shock was still disappointed, he felt empty and hollow and could not speak.
‘’No, you don’t get to feel sorry, you don’t get to feel depressed, this whole situation is your fault, you will now call the main chapter immediately and report the situation’’ Said Oswin looking directly at Rickus.
‘’Here on my wrist, you can contact him, do whatever you want’’ Said Rickus.
Oswin rushed over, picked up Rickus by his robes and put his face right upon his.
‘’You are still the chapter master, you are still our leader, there are brothers here we need to save, that we need to make sure this chapter survives, for the Lion’’ Said Oswin.
As soon as he heard those words, something clicked within Rickus, his mind started racing, thoughts were being processed, but one image kept coming back, it was images he had seen of the God Emperor for some reason, it had happened once, when he was training to become a chaplain, when he thought he could go no longer, he saw images of the God Emperor, not projections but just image or statues he had seen of him while training.
‘’Then we shall save them, but this will be my last mission as chapter master, after so much failure I don’t believe I am fit to lead anymore’’ Said Rickus.
‘’You coward!’’ said Oswin as he unsheathed his knives, he had enough of the chaplain’s depression.
He was shocked too, but he knew there was still a fight to be won and he needed to wake up their chapter master, even if by force.
Oswin unsheathed two combat knives and crouched, Rickus who had known Oswin the longest knew what was coming and he too unsheathed his power sword.
As both warriors rushed forward to strike at each other again a vox signal, a whisper, a quite sound almost as if static was clearing and then a voice spoke.
‘’I request reinforcement I am sending my location to all Angels, this is captain William and I am dealing with a demon here’’’ said the primaris captain.
Both men then stopped, both being as rational as they could be, breathed and decided without words the main thing now was defeating the enemy, not killing each other and their anger, their fury, and their desperation will all be turned to the traitors, Oswin went over and picked up Rickus’s skulled helmet and handed it to him and said.
‘’We will deal with all this once the enemy is dead, Chapter master’’
Rickus put on his helmet and simply said.
‘’Agreed’’ Responded the chaplain the skull helmet locking in,
Both space marines started running towards William and hallway after hallway kept running, the place was massive but everyone kept going, and then when they finally thought they were going to reach the main chamber where William was a squad of night lords ambushed them.
Rickus and Oswin had no patience for thi,s any night lord that got close to them would die in an instant, a gouge to the eye, a cut of the throat, a slash of the pelvis onto the waist, a stab into the abdomen and ripping its organs out, Oswin had no mercy and no time.
Then Rickus would follow, an arm cut off, a leg would fly sideways by itself while the body fell the opposite way, and Rickus would crush the enemy on the floor with his boot, he would block an attack and then crush a night lord against the wall crushing him in his own armor, these two had become death incarnate, and nothing would stop them from reaching brother William nothing but a true night lord.
Just as Rickus and Oswin were cleaning up they heard many soldiers behind them dying, and one by one heads were flying not arms not legs not pieces of armor, no, just heads, chopped cleaned off, surgical and with the outmost precision, Oswin saw the figure and rushed it with super human quickness.
‘’Wait brother!’’ Said Rickus.
‘’Don’t worry about me brother, just take the men and save William!’’ yelled Oswin back.
Rickus nodded and took the survivors with him around ten space marines were left along with his neophyte, the shadow tired to chase them down but Oswin intercepted it with his swords, as they clashed and sparks flew from the power swords Oswin spoke.
‘’Not so fast, you owe me something Kurtz’’ said Oswin while ducking a clean slash that would have decapitated him had he not moved.
‘’I don’t think I’m that famous yet .I mean I recently became leader of this warband. how could a regular space marine know about me? I wonder’’ Said Kurtz as he ducked low.
His power claw turned on, he tried to close the distance but Oswin opened fire with his Bolter pistol Kurts parried a few bullets then jumped behind Oswin and before the captain could react the night lord managed to slash his helmet while coming down from the top, and the injury itself was not fatal it did force Oswin to remove his helmet.
‘’Ah, I see, its you’’ Kurtz grinned almost from ear to ear as a couple of drops of saliva dripped from his lips and extended tongue ‘’I thought you were dead by now, scum’’
Oswin rushed him and as their swords clashed the sparks from their swords could no longer be seen from Rickus point of view, he needed to get to Captain William he had a bad feeling about the whole situation, and William needed help fast.

Diamanchez · Thursday at 02:23 PM

Chapter 9
Justice

The Adeptus Astartes have organs and gene seed implanted into them to make them almost seem like demi-gods, capable of leveling whole armies in the right situation, however those who had been tainted by chaos had even more implants on them, as such was the case with Williams current enemy.
‘’You seem confused young one’’ Said Vladius ‘’I said I would treat you differently since you are special, and I kept my word, I introduce myself and even killed all your brothers in front of you, I’ve left you for last, and I can feel your anger but you also have unlimited potential, I’ve tried to kill you three times now and you dodged one parried another and blocked the last one, but well your arms must hurt, I assume that’s why you don’t rush me anymore’’ Said Vladius smiling under his helm menacingly.
William began to breath in and out gathering himself, focusing solely in the next few minutes, he would discard all thoughts, all doubts, and solely get ready for these next seconds of battle.
‘’Oh, I see’’ said Vladius ‘’One last thing I should mention, is that I have no chaos powers, it is all pure muscle I gained for letting some old doctor experiment on me, and then I trained and honed my body to its limits, this sword however does have a demon in it’’ As the giant sword shone from the hilt Vladius began spinning it above his head with his fingers almost as if weighed nothing ‘’It’s not really a strong demon per-se but his ability is to nullify gravity, you understand what this means right?’’ Said Vladius still smiling.
But William was no longer listening, he was completely focused on just killing the enemy in front him, and William jolted forward like lightning in physical form, but he struck air, the night lord was already ten steps back and had dodged William.
The primaris Captain then opened fire with his pistol chasing what seemed like an after image of the traitor, not a single round landed and the enemy was closing in, William could only think of one plan left he would have to block or parry and endure the attack, not slowing he would counterattack as soon as Vladius strike was finished.
He then threw his gun away and held a sword in each hand preparing for the impact, the night lord saw the challenge and accepted, and with full speed, full momentum, and his full weight behind the strike, he struck like flash of light, horizontally across Williams right ribs but the captain put his sword in an X shape and blocked the attack.
As sparks flew from the swords clashing, William like water let the attack pass through, and guided away from him with his swords, as he spun from the momentum of the attack, he used that same momentum to slash at the traitor’s head.
It was the perfect distance, the perfect speed, the perfect slash, it will meet its target and decapitate the traitor, it will land or so William thought.
Only if Vladius’s sword wasn’t weightless he would have been hit, and before William can reach the neck of the enemy Vladius sword is already swinging back, the way it came almost as if nothing had bothered it.
Full momentum, full speed full weight, once again this time it starts at Williams left elbow, cuts it off, and continues to his rib cage, which get sliced open, the attack does not end until it comes out of the right side of William completely cutting him in half.
A fatal blow, a death blow, a final blow, but William with the last of his strength only half his torso and one arm, swings sideways at the top of the traitors head, before falling besides his lower half in a puddle of blood, as he laid there dying, he could see his attack had removed the helmet from his enemy, and as he saw his face he tried to speak.
‘’No…it…..it…cannot be’’ as he coughed blood and struggled to breathe.
The traitor quickly went to pick up his helmet and put it back on as he looked back at the dying William and said.
‘’We all have our secrets’’ Said Vladius in the most serious tone he had ever spoken.
As the traitor moved in slowly to finish the job he could not believe his eyes somehow someone had gotten in front of him, there was a space marine with black and green armor, as well as a skull hooded helmet, he was kneeling, talking to William and getting his helmet off, then William said.
‘’Brother…..’’ and gave his last breath.
The young captain had perished, and the chaplain was Furious, from the mission, from the death, from the loss of his comrade, and most of all he was needing an outlet to release all his anger.
He then proceeded to remove his skull helmet and look directly at the traitor, gritting his teeth in anger, his jaw as wide as a normal mans chest and too many teeth seemed to be in his mouth, the eight foot space marine was shaking in his armor from anger, the black carapace skin almost screaming for him to move, his pupils seemed like spiderwebs of broken ceramite, in them a feral snarl could be heard making its way from inside his mouth and the heavy shelf of his brow cast a shadow of pure malice and anger, and steam could almost be seen from his nostrils and between his teeth.
‘’You will pay for that, you night lord always said all the crazy action you take is because of you justice right?’’ The chaplain bent down almost as if a Lion was about to pounce on its prey ‘’Well your death shall be the justice I shall claim for all the blood you spilled today’’ the chaplain proceeded to put on his dead brother helmets and a recording began to play.
‘’So you ditched the skull for the laurels? You saw what happened to the last guy right? I don’t think they are that special’’ Said Vladius.
Rickus rushed with his shield forward and parried the traitors incoming attack before it was fully swung, causing him to bring it back but the sword being weightless he had already brought it down again in full force, however Rickus had his shield up still, and at the same time he had already tried to stab with his Sword, the traitor jumped back, as fast he could but his right shoulder guard had been the receiver of the slash and while it did not reach his skin it did shatter the traitors left shoulder guard.
‘’Wow’’ said Vladius impressed ‘’you are even better than the young one, is it really the laurels then? Or just your experience and anger I feel from you?’’ Said Vladius with now not smiling but clutching his jaw in preparation for a worthy opponent.
Rickus gave no answer and had already stabbed his sword on the ground he was already shooting with his plasma pistol, but the traitor was too quick with his abnormal body, and dodged every shot while once again closing in on the angel, he then attacked relentlessly he was not playing anymore, he was done testing waters he did not want to risk another hit to his armor or worse to his helmet again.
He battered Rickus and his shield left and right, left and right, and the chaplain was pinned, he could not move, he tried to side step and the traitor was there with him, he tried to back step the traitor would rush him, and cause him to defend, if he tried to attack the traitor would dodge and counter attack in an instant, and wherever the chaplain jumped, moved, or ran, The Night lord was there, in front of him wearing him down, tearing the shield apart.
‘’Whats wrong?! Can you not do anything but defend once I get serious?’’ Said Vladius smiling while still attacking non stop ‘’I do not know how you did the earlier trick where you appeared out of nowhere, but it appears you cant use it when you want or at least some conditions need to be met right??!!’’ Said the giant night lord.
Vladius continued striking, the shield was now falling apart however just as the shield was breaking, a noise clicked in the helmet of Rickus, it was a notification that it was the end of a recording, the recording was the fight between William and the traitor.
Rickus had seen it all, even the traitors face, and so with all his strength he focused his power, his energy and weight into his shield, he pushed the traitor back but only for one second as the traitor was about to strike back already he saw what even he thought was madness almost as if time had slowed down but clearly and swiftly the traitor saw the chapter master.
The chaplain threw away his shield and removed William’s helmet, all to reveal the same angry face he had shown, but this time with tears coming from his eyes, but not regular tears, the chaplain was bleeding from his eye sockets from the extreme anger, and not being able to release it but that would all change, as just before the traitor stroke down at Rickus he could clearly hear him say.
‘’Fallen’’ Said Rickus.
This word made Vladius hesitate for a fraction of a second, but still swung his sword down with two hands, as it met the floor dust and blood flew upward, but it was blood from the dead corpses not from the chaplain.
‘’I see, I was correct’’ Said Rickus.
He was standing right behind the traitor almost in an instant the only thing Vladius could think of was to attack but was confused, his instinct took over and he struck again as if swinging behind him, and hit nothing but air.
‘’I bet its frustrating not being able to hit something’’ Said Rickus once again.
He was still behind him.
‘’How? This is not possible! did you poison me? Are you invisible?’’ Asked Vladius.
In his anger the night lord jumped forward and then side ways and then finally smashed his back fully against a metal wall hoping to crush the chaplain he had covered several feet of distance in seconds all thanks to his Body.
However the Chapter master was still there, this time the Chaplain was right in front of him, the blood in his eyes dried up and now, a more calm, but cold face like someone who had just seen it all, someone not surprised or impressed, even disappointed now was on him.
‘’Since you gave my Brother William special treatment I will offer you the same deal’’ Said Rickus.
The traitor swung his sword sideways but nothing was there, and almost in a fraction of a second the space marine was there again almost as if he hadn’t moved at all.
‘’I will explain to you what’s going to happen, and that way you can truly feel fear, you impostor’’ Said Rickus.
The night lord shouted in anger and once again used his body to jump around the whole dome shaped structure, he was in a chair, then on a window, then by the entrance, then at the top, then in the middle, then back to where he was.
He was a blur, almost unseeable by the naked eye, but every time he jumped, or moved or ran there was always the chaplain in front of him, watching him silently, if the night lord would swing he would miss, until finally out of desperation he spoke.
‘’What do you know of me?!! What can you possibly know? I’ve been alive since before you were even created! Before the heresy! I saw the primarchs, I fought with them! you follow corpses and dead legends what could you possibly know!!?’’ screamed Vladius in desperation while breathing hard.
‘’I know who you are, I know what you are, and I know this because your secret happened to be tied with one of mine’’ Said Rickus.
The chaplain now smiled almost as if an infant has a brand new toy or an adult has a new vehicle or a soldier a new weapon, the smile of excitement, of anticipation of not being able to wait to start testing the limits of their new acquired tool.
‘’One of my secrets I have already revealed today, here is the other’’ said Rickus ‘’ A couple of years ago for some reason I started feeling weird like something had called me, and awoken something in me’’ Said Rickus As Vladius looked on quietly, genuinely curious about the Chaplain.
‘’I could not tell what it was, it was not until I got angry at my apothecary over an argument, where I tried to stop him from leaving the room, and focused so hard that I somehow appeared right beside him’’ Rickus then disappeared.
He was now on the side of the traitor, and before Vladius could turn to face him, he was met with a slash to his right thigh, severing an artery and causing immense pain, as the night lord fell to one knee grabbing his wound he looked up only to see Rickus once again looking above him ignoring his screaming he began to speak again.
‘’And so I, like all people, got curious and the more I focused and used it the more I understood it, and with test with Manus here is what I can do’’ Rickus disappeared again.
The night lord stood up, the bleeding had stopped, but the wound still hurt, but he looked everywhere and nowhere could he see the chaplain, until he looked down and there he was right in front of him almost like he had been there the whole time.
The night lord swung and missed with his sword, he tried spinning in a windmill shape to strike all around him, but all he saw was Rickus right above him slashing at his helmet, Vladius barely dodged but his helmet took the hit and as it fell apart Rickus appeared in front of him once again, and before the traitor could cover his face Rickus spoke from under him looking up.
‘’Oh don’t cover it I already heard it in Williams helmet, it actually helps me wrap up my story’’ Said Rickus with a fake smile ‘’I can basically teleport to any son of the Lion I see, its limited to what my eyes can follow and I cannot do it with a picture or a video, I can only teleport to someone I can see physically and they must be alive for this to happen, it’s what I used earlier to get to My brother and I tought I could not use it against you, but once I heard the revelation of your face in the helmet, I knew you fate was in my hands’’ Said Rickus.
Vladius stood up and put his hand in his face and pulled his hair backwards, he had normal skin, not the pale white, his teeth were normal no fangs, or sharpened teeth, his eyes were a dark brown but no black pupils, and you could see the white in his eyes unlike all other night lords, and his hair was blonde and long with a beard, all night lords had black hair.
‘’So what now, brother?’’ asked Vladius.
Rickus said nothing for a second and spoke
‘’Nothing, Traitor, you are a fallen who somehow joined the night lords, and I am a chaplain of the dark angels, I shall make you repent or kill you trying’’ said Rickus.
What followed could not be considered a fight, it was what someone would call a slaughter, every time the traitor swung he missed and received a cut, every time he would move the chaplain would be on him and cut him.
He stepped back he received a slash, he stepped sideways he received a slash, he jumped in the air he received a slash, he would run in circles and he would receive a slash, this went on for an hour, he landed zero hits on Rickus, while the chaplain very carefully and on purpose slashed non-vital parts of the body to keep the suffering up of the traitor.
Until finally Vladius fell on his knees, his ankles were now cut to the bone, he no longer had any tendons, his kneecaps were shattered, his thighs lacerated, his guts were starting to spill out from his stomach, his left eye had been gouged out, his right arm was barely hanging on with ripped skin, and his left arm had already fallen off from so much damage, in total he received 70 slashes before collapsing.
There he was, coughing blood barely alive, on deaths door, and he could hear the chaplain approach from in front of him, the traitor was on his knees almost facing upward as he was leaning back trying not to fall over.
‘’I have failed to make you repent’’ Said Rickus.
The chaplain then turned off his power sword and sheathe it and looked at giant who on his knees was on his eye level.
‘’I choose where to appear when I use my ability, below, above, behind, in front, from the sides and I also chose where to cut you, to leave you alive just enough, to bleed out’’ Said Rickus as he picked up his skulled helmet and carried it on his side.
The traitor gurgling blood on his throat and not trying not to move to much tried to speak.
‘’You….you….monster’’ barely spoke the traitor breathing hard and spilling blood he continued‘’ What demon….. what demon did you sell your soul to?’’ Said Vladius.
The chaplain walked closer to the Giant and whispers.
‘’The Lion is the one who owns my soul, traitor’’ Finished Rickus.
The chaplain turned around and began to head for the entrance to regroup with his troops and Oswin.
‘’You die here….’’ Whispered Vladius.
Focusing every part of his body, every vein he had left that wasn’t cut, and concentrating on not feeling anything from his injuries, he leapt forward like an animal it opened his jaw wide going for a bite in the back of Rickus head, with no helmet he was easy prey ,with his sword sheathed he was easy prey, and he could only teleport where a Dark angel could be seen, since Rickus had not seen Vladius he was easy prey, or so Vladius thought.
‘’Die!!!’’ Screamed Vladius.
He bit down as hard as he could and then fell forward, he had bitten air he had missed his target, Rickus was gone.
‘’Wha-‘’ Vladius tried to speak.
As the traitor looked up where Rickus had one stood he saw coming from the entrance bright lights shining, it was Muzzle Fire coming from ten space marines who had switched their weapons to automatic, the Fallen with no strength left and unable to move was showered by bolter fire, his remaining arm fell off completely, his legs were riped to ribbons, and his chest and stomach were opened wide while his head flew apart in two pieces after a bolter round had met him in between the eyes, the traitor was dead.
‘’Are you okay my Lord?’’ asked the Neophyte Godfrey as he reloaded his weapon.
‘’Yes, we need to find Oswin and then leave to get an update and help everyone else’’ Said Rickus.
‘’Yes my lord, since you didn’t have your helmet on there was a message you missed’’ said the neophyte ‘’Its from space marines in the docking bay, they had come with Captain William and have secured a vessel and means of escaping, they have also sent two men to the main bridge complex’’ finished the neophyte Godfrey.
The chaplain picked up his skulled helmet and put it on and spoke.
‘’This is Rickus, explain to me why some of you went to the bridge complex’’ Said the Chapter Master.
‘’Its was captain William’s last orders sir, as he was fighting that beast a message on the vox came through, saying we should reach the primary power relay seat just in case’’ said the space marine over the Vox.
‘’in case of what?’’ said Rickus.
A sound was heard coming from the entrance but nothing could be seen, the sound was of shredded ceramite screeching against the stone floor.
All the night lords have what’s called ‘prey sight’ a infrared system built in their power armor helmet allowing them to see the temperature and see in the dark, the night lord ignited this and his lenses Glew red, a humming a eerier hum in a Nostradamus language could be heard following this.
Then almost as if time itself time had slowed for the chaplain, he could clearly see from the entrance a figure, a shadow, a space marine, a night lord.
It was Kurtz and he was dragging something through the entrance, It was Oswin, twitching, being dragged, he had his left arm and left leg mutilated, had been beaten up, his eyes gouged out and tongue cut off, he also had wounds all over his stomach, he swung the mutilated marine like a sack of meat as it slid across the floor to the Angels.
The first thud was the loudest they heard, as half a ton of Marine and power armor hit the ground, it was almost as if he was presenting a trophy, the body moved facing down and he tried to face up and look at his brothers only to reveal a night lord symbol with bat wings had been carved crudely into his Forehead.
Even sons of the Lion were horrified, they were unable to move from the shock all but one.
‘’You! What have you done!?’’ Said Rickus as he tried to get to Oswin using his ability.
But he couldn’t, he could not teleport to Oswin for some reason, he was going to have to run but the room was vast and they were around two hundred meters away from him, it would take at least eight seconds to get to them, so he stood still for now watching his longest brother struggle to breath and talk with no tongue.
The night Lord leaned back against a wall almost as if he was bored and gave a fake smile as he stopped humming.
‘’Well this is :cuss:ing disappointing!’’ Said Kurtz ‘’I listened to that scum’s Vox recording, and I really thought this was jackpot, instead it’s just supply routes and a old ship, at least we will kill the Lions sons in his own ship, that’s always a fun time’’ Kurtz said as he started walking toward Oswin.
Rickus could no longer contain his anger, and his patience had ran out, he rushed at full speed running with every bone in his body every vein in his organs, every ounce of energy, he ran to reach Oswin before Kurtz and just as Rickus ran the night lord smiled.
‘’Now that, that makes it more fun’’ said Kurtz with an eerie smile on his face.
The lights then suddenly went out, the room was complete darkness, even the lenses from the night lord had disappeared, even the chaplain was blind.
‘’Now you will now what it is to encounter a true night lord, my cousins’’ said a voice that seemed to come from all around the angels.
Blood was heard spilling on the floor, armor pieces caused sparks on the floor as they fell, the night lord was nowhere to be seen, and the angels were dying in the dark.

Edited Thursday at 02:24 PM by Diamanchez

Diamanchez · Friday at 02:51 PM

Hello everyone! Thank you all who have been reading since chapter 1 day by day i really appreciate it! and thanks to anyone who found this and is currently reading this, i will now upload the final chapter, the epilogue and a character Index to wrap up my first book, approximately 50k words made up this book so if you reached this far, thank you! it means a lot to me, i write as a hobby and way to vent off stress from work, so seeing that my raw emotions and writing as a mexican, have resonated with some of you feels surreal! After today i will not post on the weekends like i mentioned in earlier posts i spend Saturday polishing up chapters and Sunday i spend time with my family, so i wont be coming until Monday, where i will drop the epilogue and chapter 1 of my second book: The Ravenwatch, hope you enjoy this finale, and please let me know your thoughts your reviews, your critiques, the heresy i might have committed or anything at all would be appreciated! So have fun, enjoy the ending, and see you all on Monday! and one last time, thank you all who took time out of your life's to read my work, it means a lot to me.

Chapter 10

Faith

As the whole room went Dark, and light sucked away from the room, before anything could happen before any movement could be heard or made by anyone, Chaplain Rickus recalled a talk he had with apothecary Manus before leaving the Lions Fang.

‘’Brother its all set finally we shall meet the Lion, Praise the God Emperor’’ Said Manus.
‘’Yes brother finally, but why did you request to speak with me privately?’’ Asked Rickus.
As they moved closer to the window the both looked at the planet,
‘’if we are to finally finish this brother I have to tell you that you must see the emperors light, I know its difficult given our purpose and our losses, but you as a chaplain of this chapter mus-‘’ Manus was cut off by Rickus.
‘’Brother I will believe our emperor to be a God and pray to him when I have nothing else, when I have exhausted everything, and have nothing left, no men, no brothers, no breath, and no life, then I think ill pray and beg to be saved’’ said Rickus as he put his helmet on ‘’Now come, we must find the Lion’’ Finished Rickus.
‘’Brother given your condition and your secret, I really urge you to believe the God Emperor will Help if only you prayed to him as a God’’ Said Manus.
Rickus said nothing and left he kept walking towards the main bridge ready for battle.

Back on the Invincible reason Rickus was panicking.
‘’Turn on the lights! Now!’’ screamed the chaplain into the vox.
The space marines William had sent to the power controls were for this reason, he knew at least one night lord would have used the lights to their advantage, he did not know it would be against Kurtz or that it would help his chapter master even after dying.
‘’Well now you can see me, how boring’’ said Kurtz.
As he was surrounded by dead angels all around him all beheaded except one, it was Rickus’s neophyte, it was Godfrey being chocked by Kurtz.
‘’This is more fun right? After hearing all From that scum’s vox recoding, I know a few secrets and this one you care for right chaplain?’’ Said Kurtz with a twisted smile and drool from his lips.
‘’If you haven’t killed him its because you have something twisted in mind, what do you want? you Fiend’’ Asked Rickus.
‘’Well I know so much of you know and you know nothing of us, I just thought I would elaborate a bit’’ Said Kurtz.
As he swung the neophyte from side to side almost as he weighed nothing, he was still alive but any false moves could be his death.
‘’We are the night lords yes, we are the bad guys right? That’s always the case but no one ever sees the real reasons, and that’s that is all for justice and our goals just like everyone else right?’’ Kurtz grinned as he spoke ‘’Take Vladius for example he was betrayed by your father, and I found him during the thramas crusade before he fell, I had already fought him once, afterwards though he just became another of Fabius Bile’s experiment a strong experiment but no identity anymore’’ Said Kurtz still having Godfrey by the throat ‘’And then Drak just wanted to be stronger, to be more skilled, there is no shame in that only Honor, Kheron just wanted to learn more tech and learn other ways to use bodies to help as servitors, nothing bad with that right?’’ Kurtz started squeezing tighter and he could see Rickus wanted to move but his other hand where he had his claw was too close to Godfreys chest.
‘’Don’t move now, I’m almost done’’ Said Kurtz with a sadistic grin ‘’Talos really did heal our own and himself, his methods were crude, but he still helped, how is that evil? Varrus studies the warp and uses it just in a different way than your librarians, and yet you call him a heretic? and then finally Gendor, he had given his soul to a demon God just to be stronger and prove his loyalty and that is worth praising is it not?’’ Asked Kurtz looking directly at the chapter master.
Rickus was beyond annoyed, he wanted to teleport to Godfrey and help but he was so close to Oswin too, and wanted to check his condition.
‘’Do you have a point?’’ asked Rickus.
The night lord made an annoyed expression and spoke
‘’You dark angels, always so rude’’ The night lord then lifted the neophyte higher ‘’I should kill this one now, we have signals, ways of knowing about each other and reporting, and no one has reported anything, all my men are dead for your ‘justice’ your ‘destiny’ and what about ours? Are we just trash? Just cannon fodder? Just the villain for your books? Just someone to keep your secrets from? Well here is two secrets for you, since you love secrets so much, listen to me and realize that we are not different, we just have different values, so first of all this, ship was home to our primarch Konrad Curze for months, he hunted this ship and left a beacon for us to find that I found’’ Explained Kurtz.
Rickus decided that he would teleport to Godfrey as soon as Kurtz made a mistake, but what Kurtz said next left him stunned.
‘’And the second secret, is that three hundred years ago I had recruited a new batch of night lords, and one of them escaped after one hundred years of service, I thought of hunting him but when I found out what he had become I had a better plan, I would use him you see, this night lord had fled to the dark angels, after one of our battles he switched sides, kind of like Vladius he even had surgery done to remove his pale skin and black eyes, and shaved his head and his name was changed, he changed it to, Oswin’’ Said the Night lord in a sickening smile
Rickus could not believe it but he had not been able to teleport to Oswin for a reason.
‘’What lies do you spit?’’ asked Rickus
He was asking, denying the truth, but deep down he knew what the actual truth was already.
‘’No lies cousin, I tell you he was encountered by our agents and we told him no one would reveal his secret if he convinced the angels of virtue to clear out a planet for us’’ Said Kurtz as looked over at Godfrey then back to the chapter master.
‘’No’’ said the chaplain,
‘’Yes! This very same planet you see, it was me who told Oswin the Lions whereabouts might be in this planet, that plus us not revealing his secret, he had no choice but to comply’’ Kurtz noticed Rickus had stopped moving.
‘’I see you believe it now, and understand what this means, all the death two hundred years ago, the reason your chapter was almost wiped out, and the death our your dear previous chapter master who’s geneseed is here with this welp, all that was because Oswin listened to me, even if he was forced he still did it’’ Kurtz was no lowering the Neophyte felling more confident ‘’ And sure he could not have known the necrons would ambush you guys but, he could have always killed himself, I guess now that we know his secret it makes sense why he went to exile for two hundred years right? Kurtz asked Rickus.
But Rickus was already walking over to Oswin, who was alive but barely, as a mutilated body on the floor he could hear everything but could not talk.
‘’Yes this is what I wanted! go on! finish him off, kill him, he is not even a real son of the Lion! finish him for his treachery chaplain, do it and ill release the neophyte’’ Said Kurtz with a twisted smile.
Rickus was walking slowly until he finally arrived at Oswin, the chaplain looked down on him and spoke.
‘’You and me both joined the angels for master Godfrey, he taught us everything we know, I did not know this is why you had left brother, I cannot imagine the pain you felt the sorrow and the shame of it, I would have killed myself, but you endured, and came back to us, you helped us, and now you are finally free, you have no more secrets and I want to tell you something’’ Rickus then got in one knee ‘’I shall grant you the Emperor’s Mercy Brother’’ Said Rickus.
He then pulled out his plasma pistol and intended to shoot Oswin, but he wanted to at least pick up his brother and have him die standing, not as some sort of animal in the ground, it was the least he could do.
As Rickus leaned in to try and help Oswin stand the captain in the ground swung his hand at Rickus, signaling to not help him, and pointed at his stomach before Rickus could understand what was going on a ‘click’ metal noise could be heard, it was explosives, Kurtz had planted a bomb inside Oswin.
As the impact from the explosion was sending Rickus flying in a split second, he looked over at Kurtz who still had Godfrey in his hands, and in a split second before the explosion could fully damage the chaplain he teleported to Kurtz, however it was too late the night lord had pierced the neophytes heart, just one finger from his claw pierced his heart, as not being a full Astartes the neophytes do not count with the full organs such as Two hearts.
‘’NOOOO!!!’’ screamed Rickus.
He was right in front of Kurtz now and as he swung his power sword at Kurtz head, a perfect hit, yet the night lord’s body suddenly turned into mist, and moved backwards, then the night lords body became solid again.
‘’Wow, that was quick! But I already got the feed from Vladius’s power armor, I know you can only use that with Dark Angels nearby’’ Kurtz moved his side from side to side as if looking for something ‘’And from what I can see all the sons of the Lion are dead, that last jump was the last one you had before he died’’ Said Kurtz.
Rickus was holding his neophyte who was coughing blood and tried to talk.
‘’Do not talk young one, just listen’’ Said Rickus as he started whispering to the neophyte.
‘’Really? Secrets? Now? To a dead man? You guys take this too far’’ said Kurtz, with an annoyed and tired expression in his face.
The night lord then dashed towards Rickus who had picked up the neophytes pistol and started opening fire, Kurtz dodged and weaved while parrying a few with his sword he then reached Rickus and attacked.
The chaplain with sword on one hand was blocking Kurtz’s attacks but barely, and he was being pushed back into the wall, then he parried a blow coming from above and in a split second that the night lord stopped moving the chaplain opened fire at point blank range however all he hit was mist, then the night lord stepped back again to gain distance.
‘’Not bad, not bad at all I can barely touch you, what are you? A monster?’’ Asked Kurtz smiling.
He then heard the Chaplain murmur something.
‘’The God Emperor Protects’’ said Rickus.
The night lord started laughing.
‘’As I saw from Oswin’s vox recordings you don’t really believe in him like that do you? Have you finally given up? Now that you are all alone? Now that you have nothing left and will die now do you turn to your corpse God?’’ Asked Kurtz still smiling.
‘’He does protect, and you are right I have nothing left so I might as well pray to my God right? Might as well meet my God an honorable warrior, and not some coward who strikes from the shadows’’ Rickus grinned ‘’Without your abilities you are not that strong night lord’’ Said Rickus.
The night lord became upset and was about to rush forward when the chaplain spoke something interesting.
‘’I know your secrets now, I have seen all I needed to, and now I will kill you’’ said Rickus who was at least one hundred meters away from the night lord.
‘’Is that so? What are my secrets eh? Son of the Lion’’ asked Kurtz who’s interested had peaked now.
‘’First of all you are not that strong or quick or even skillful, you can somehow see the future however you can only see the future of what’s in your vision I noticed this since you were only able to parry the shots you saw why not parry all of them? Some you had to dodge, so what you can see with your eyes Is what you can predict, I noticed this when I teleported to Godfrey’’ said Rickus.
The night lord said nothing and kept listening, but the smile was now gone.
‘’What brings me to your other ability which is to somehow avoid damage by turning into mist, you turned into mist on my first strike since you did not expect my teleportation and lost sight of me when I teleported, and just now I shot you and you stepped back as mist which means it has a cool down, if you could do it forever you would just use it non-stop’’ Explained Rickus.
The night lord removed his helmet and had a angry expression.
‘’And? What does it matter if it is true?’’ Kurtz angrily remarked ‘’is not like you can do anything about it’’ Said the Night Lord.
The chaplain reloaded the gun and holstered it he then reached for what seemed to be two grenades and spoke.
‘’To decide if I can do anything about it or not will be shown after this, you scum’’ Said Rickus.
He then threw all the grenades he had around the room, almost nothing was visible, these were smoke grenades, and then Rickus ran to the night lord and struck once from the side, the night lord could not see the future for he could not see Rickus or the attacks.
‘’It’s kind of ridiculous that not being able to see is your weakness, I mean being a night lord and all’’ Said Rickus
as he struck at the ribs of Kurtz who barely dodged.
‘’Quit taunting me and face me, coward! Is this how an Astartes fight?’’ screamed Kurtz.
‘’What’s the matter? Scared? Nervous without being able to see the future? Use your mist c’mon! or are you also scared I will counter it?’’ asked Rickus who attacked from the back at point blank range.
As soon as Kurtz felt the sword touch him he turned into mist and stepped back and just as he was forming back into solid ground he heard a scream.
‘’Now!’’ screamed Rickus.
The night lord felt a cut coming in from his left side, as soon as he had formed a chainsword was waiting for him, it was Godfrey, the neophyte was alive and he was attacking the night lord.
Who took his right with his sword to try and counter, since his power claw was blocking the attack from the neophyte, however Kurtz was not lost in madness, he knew what was coming, and in a blink of an eye Rickus teleported besides the neophyte and began to swing his sword down on the night lord.
He h0wever, was prepared, he pushed Godfrey into Rickus and pushed them aside he then tried to stab Godfrey again, the chaplain hugging Godfrey with one arm holding him far from the night lord opened fire with his other hand where he was holding a bolter, but Kurtz turned into mist and instead of dodging back he pushed forward.
He then appeared right in front of the angels and aimed for Godfreys head who was now at the chaplains chest, the chapter master saw no other way and turned his body giving his back to the night lord protecting the neophyte, he could not teleport anywhere else, he could not move, he could not counter, he could not attack, and most of all he could not fulfill his destiny.
And then, as the night lords power claw pierced Rickus in both of his hearts from and entry wound from the back, and blood came gushing from the chaplains helmet, and with the last of his strength he pushed Godfrey away and said.
‘’Follow…..my…..ord-‘’ Rickus could not finish the sentence before Kurtz removed his claw from the chaplain and threw him aside.
The chapter master felt his pulse lowering, and his consciousness fading, as he was laying there Rickus could only think of one thing for some reason, The God Emperor.
It was in his mind, an image of him, in his mind he could see him, he could feel him, almost as if the God Emperor was there himself, then the two hearts tried beating one last time and couldn’t, the chaplains eyes then closed.
The night lord looked and saw the chapter master lying motionless and rushed the neophyte who was running towards what was left of Oswins backpack, and then the night lord caught up to him.
‘’How? How are you alive? What is happening?’’ Yelled Kurtz as he spat blood and was confused and left arm bleeding.
He proceeded to parry an attack from the neophyte and broke his arm and lifted him by the throat and examined the neophyte.
‘’Ah! I see! What sneaky bastards you angels of virtue are’’ said Kurtz smiling ‘’ He somehow sped up your process, you are not a full Astartes, but you do have two hearts and I only pierced one, well enough secrets, that was his last one and he is dead now, but don’t worry ill send you to your chaplain soon enough’’ Kurtz prepared to deliver the final blow with his claw but the neophyte spoke.
‘’That was not his secret, it was mine, and here is another one’’ Said Godfrey.
The neophytes metal arm then shot out a blade from the forearm, and was aimed at Kurtz head but all became mist, and as soon as Kurtz became whole again he was sure it was over, he was sure he would kill this neophyte and win and be over with all this.
Instead he felt something he had not felt in forever, it was pain, he could no longer transform, he could not see the future, all he could see was the edge of a sword cutting through his forearm, making its way to his ribs.
Almost as if time had slowed, he could clearly see the blade entering his side cutting everything inside including his two hearts, and coming out of the other side cutting the night lord clean in half.
As the body fell Kurtz saw his killer and could not believe it, the eyes were shining with a golden light, the armor was the same color but shining, a golden aura enveloped the space marine and a shining light shone behind him, it was Chapter Master Rickus, standing with righteousness in his mind and faith in his heart, he then spoke.
‘’This is my last secret’’ Rickus then coughed and removed his helmet to let out, what seemed to be, a bucket of blood coming from his helmet.
‘’I have an extra implant besides all the other ones, I actually had a third heart installed near my abdomen, however I was told it had been a failure that the heart could not adapt and it would not beat unless the other two were gone, that is to say if I was dead’’ the chaplains eyes lost its golden light and his aura disappeared ‘’I do not know however how it was activated, it was supposed to be impossible without external help, however in my last moments I saw something and simply had faith’’ Explained Rickus.
The neophyte got close to Rickus who had fallen to one knee and helped him up.
‘’My lord, we should leave and get medical aid’’ Said Godfrey.
Rickus simply nodded, they needed to get a hold of the situation, the night lord’s main ship was still in orbit and it was guaranteed that their ship was attacked not to mention they had no idea what was going on back on the planet.
Then as they headed for the exit a sudden pull Yanked the neophyte from Rickus’s side, as the Chaplain turned and saw what was behind him he could not believe his eyes.
‘’By the Emperor’’ Said Rickus eyes wide open in shock.
The night lord had not only reattached its body it had grown several times it size, is was bigger than a primarch but it was no longer a living thing, just a demon.
Its skin turned light blue his hands turned into claws of bats his legs to hooves, and his armor bounced off his body as it was too small, only a tabard and some thigh armor remained, its tail was long and slick and had scales, his face had twisted into a bat, his nose was scrunched into his face, eyes looking everywhere, and fangs of a bat punctured his gums and popped out of his mouth, his hair was gone and four horns had grown two in the front and two in the back of his head.
The night lord had given his soul over to Tzeentch in exchange for being able to turn into mist but that had slowly consumed him, and at his moment of dying he begged the God for another chance, and he has gotten another one, but not the way he expected.
‘’All knowledge has a price‘’ Said the demon in completely different voice ‘’Now, I shall end you both’’ The demon said.
As Rickus tried to teleport to Godfrey it was too late, the demon had ripped him in half, and threw his torso towards Rickus who caught it.
‘’I saved you the trouble of teleporting to him, you are welcome’’ said the demon as its smiled.
‘’My….lord…’’ said the neophyte as he coughed blood and could barely breathe ‘’ive…..ive…completed the mission’’
Rickus looked to Oswin’s backpack and then looked back at the dying neophyte.
‘’Yes, yes you did Brother, I am proud of you, in this battle you have tested yourself and proved yourself you are a true son of the Lion, and you demonstrated it to everyone here there is no doubt of your skill, your courage, or your heart, you have fought well brother you may re-‘’ Rickus stopped talking as he noticed the neophyte was already dead.
‘’I’m not sure he heard all that, don’t worry you will get a chance to tell him later, I guarantee you will’’ said the Demon as it crouched and prepared to attack.
‘’The only thing that’s one hundred percent guaranteed demon, is that you die today! Not another day not even another hour will go by before your last breath, we the angels of virtue will make sure of that!’’ Said Rickus.
The demon launched full speed ahead and Rickus barely dodged by sidestepping, the demon had stuck its horns in the wall and was being targeted by the chaplain’s sword aiming at his nape, the demon used his tail and hit Rickus in the stomach sending him flying backwards.
As he hit a wall he coughed more blood, and fell with his back leaving a trail of blood on the wall as he fell to the ground.
‘’You said we? Have you gone crazy finally? There is no one here but us two, Astartes’’ said the demon as it grinned and prepared to rush the chaplain again.
‘’Not….for long….’’ Said the chaplain as he coughed and tried to breathe and pointed at Oswin’s backpack.
The demon saw the backpack beeping and making a noise, almost a rhythmic noise as if signaling something or someone
‘’A bomb? You should know I can just fly before the explosion gets to me, it is a huge vessel after all’’ the demon said as it started walking Towards Rickus ‘’Ill just kill you and leave before anything happens’’ It said.
Thunder arrived at the backpack of Oswin, lightning almost seemed to have struck it inside the ship, no less then, came wind, a pressure was causing wind to move away from the backpack, all of a sudden almost like a hole in reality began to form and the hole grew bigger and bigger almost until it was like a small black hole had formed around the backpack.
And from it arrived, warriors clad in white huge in size, bulky on the sides, and they didn’t appear, the slammed into the ground, the floor cracked and the earth beneath their feat groaned under their massive Ceramite-clad weight.
The air around them releasing steam, almost as if a tank was roaring to move, they looked like massive hum-backed monoliths as they came into view, one hundred terminators had arrived, all at once, no one else in the whole imperium had such teleportation capabilities but the original Dark Angels.
‘’I am captain Gabriel of the Purgewing’’ the space marine said
as rhythmic clack-clack-clack began sounding from all of them readying their storm bolters and miniguns.
‘’And we are your end’’ spoke the Captain.
This was the last secret of the whole Angels of Virtue, where a normal chapter has one thousand men and then divided into companies of one hundred, the angels of Virtue were different, they gave each captain, each virtue, one hundred men, and each fought different depending on their leader and virtue, and one hundred space marines were deployed as techs, pilots, and medics, the remaining two hundred however were different.
The remaining part of the chapter, two hundred terminator space marines, were all part of the secret ‘Purgewing’ only the chapter master and the captains knew of their existence, they are only summoned when something related to the Lion is concerned, and two high ranking officials must approve their deployment, in this case Oswin and Rickus, they were modeled after the ancient ‘Dreadwing’ and they had brought death with them.
The space marines opened fired leaving no room for error, the demon shrieked and screamed, as it tried to dodge the bullets and went in the middle of the Purgewing aiming at anyone he could get while receiving a rain of bolter fire.
Some hits had landed, but he was still movable, his claws killing terminators in one shot, its tail sending two ton giants flying like nothing, his hooves crushing those too slow to get away, all while dodging like a bat, he would pick up space marines with his claws and use them as shields, fly and then throw them at their comrades.
He then landed again to get more marines, but was met by captain Gabriels power fist, who had calculated where he would land and began preparing an attack, and as soon as the demon arrived he landed exactly where the attack was already heading, the attack landed right on the demons jaw.
As it reeled back and prepared to rush the captain, Gabriel was already shooting again with his squad, the demon flew up and dodged all while diving down again and marines were sent flying.
The captain rushed again, he saw the demon attacked with his tail but the captain then aimed his storm bolter at the tail, shredding a piece of it off, as the demon retracted its tail and screamed in pain, the terminator captain was already on him again, this time a full punch to the gut sent the demon to its back and throwing up.
As it tried to get up, it was already once again being showered by bolter fire before the demon flew up again to dodge.
‘’Damn it you Dark Angels and your stupid secrets! who knew there was a teleporter on that backpack!’’ The demon said as it’s wounds began to heal.
‘’Do not prolong this demon, we are the purgewing! Once the chapter master has summoned us. there is nothing that will be left alive no matter the cost we must pay, you will die today, come down and face retribution!’’ exclaimed captain Gabriel as he pointed to the ground and ordered a couple of apothecaries that teleported with him to get Rickus and leave.
Then he signaled for the demon to come down, almost taunting him.
‘’I will kill you all!!!!’’ Yelled the demon.
its scream was so loud that it began to interfere with the armors sensors and the terminators could not aim properly, the demon then flew straight down at the captain.
Free of annoying bolter fire it could finally focus solely on the captain who began shooting at him with his storm bolter, but just one terminator firing at him he could and handle, and the demon put its claw forward almost like a spear aiming for Gabriel.
The Captain could not dodge it, a terminator armor was a fearsome weapon indeed, and it could even deflect range weaponry however, it came at the cost of speed, and they were not immune to physical or close range attacks.
The demon met his mark, he did not hit air, did not miss, and no one teleported, he had put his claw in the abdomen of the space marine and it had reached all the way to the floor behind Gabriel, it was a fatal wound a death wound but not and instant death.
‘’What now? How will you purge me if you are dead? What’s your plan? What’s your answer to this situation?’’ said the demon.
‘’like…..i……said’’ Captain Gabriel Coughed blood and then grabbed to the arm that was piercing him as hard as he could and spoke.
‘’Whatever it takes, no matter the price’’ Said Gabriel
As he held the creature down bolter fire rained on both of them and it started taking the demon apart but the terminator had armor and shields, and he was locked in place with magnetic boots, he would not move.
‘’You fool, ill just kill you and flee before the bolter fire kills me’’ said the demon.
But it was too late before he could strike again he noticed the terminator he had pierced had become increasingly hotter, his armor was glowing yellow then red then it shone from inside him, the terminator had detonated his nuclear reactor in his terminator armor.
The explosion was massive, and before the explosion could even clear every single terminator unsheathed their plasma weapons, and Plasma rifles, plasma pistols and blue light of melting ceramite and demon blood Exploded in the middle of the chamber, all of the purgewing had extra explosives in them just for these situations and if needed they would blow themselves up as well.
The explosion was so big that it opened a small hole on the roof of ship and sucked everything into the vacuum of space, only a few terminators would survive this battle, and captain Gabriel would die, but so would the demon.
Rickus was waking up, but could barely move or see, he had never used his ability so many times, he had no idea of its limits, he had abused them and his body was now paying the price.
And he noticed he was on a Thunderhawk being treated by two apothecaries, he could see on the sensor the Lions ship, and the hole that had been blown in it, but he swore he saw something else, he swore he could see a forest where the hole was, if the books or record were true, he was seeing for some reason, branches of trees of Caliban sprawling from the hole on the ship.
‘’The Lion’’ Said Rickus as he closed his eyes.

Epilogue

‘’This is chapter master Rickus of the Angels of virtue, I am recording these words as my last act as chapter master, we have been decimated, and I have no lead to the Lion, I have failed’’ Said Rickus to the recording Vox.
He was at the main hall of the invincible reason aboard the Lions ship, it had been two weeks since the final battle.
‘’Out of our one thousand men I have lost eight hundred of them, including one hundred of the purgewing who are normally two hundred’’ Rickus then stopped as he heard someone approaching, he was maskless and the space marine arrived black and white armor.
‘’You summoned me brother?’’ Asked Manus
‘’Yes brother, please come and once again tell me our current status, I want to make sure what im doing is accurate’’ said the Chaplain.
‘’Well brother, as you already know we lost most of our troops, Brother William is dead, brother Bernard is dead, brother Oswin is dead and the brother no one but us captains knew of, Brother Gabriel, is dead, and brother Mikhail is a honorable dreadnought now, I have lost an arm and you by some miracle of the Emperor are alive in spite of all your wounds and punishment you have taken’’ reported Manus.
‘’And brother Geoffrey?’’ asked Rickus.
‘’He is a different subject, after the battle we all went to the planet to help him, but he had gone mad with power, hallucinating and having visions claiming he could see the future the past and everything in between, it took Mihail myself and the deaths of over a dozen purgewing Members to capture him, they also had some losses clearing the night lord ship thus the one hundred casualties’’ the apothecary stopped and took a deep breath ‘’Unfortunately since its not medical I cannot cure our brother however, nor force him out of his current trance, we were able to subdue him and he is currently frozen in a stasis field’’ Explained Manus.
The chaplain looked down at the Vox that would record his final words and orders as chapter master.
‘’That will be all brother you can leave’’ said Rickus.
The apothecary got closer to the chaplain.
‘’Do not do this brother there Is no need, you can rebuild, you don’t need to go to the death watch in some form of self given penance’’ said Manus.
‘’I have nothing left’’ said Rickus in a soft sad tone ‘’I’ve already cost this chapter greatly twice, almost ruining us, most of my brothers are dead, all because of me, and we are still no closer to our goal, I have no need to live any longer but to help the God Emperor by killing his foes in the deathwatch’’ said the Chaplain as he was going to start recording again.
‘’Brother you are alive by the will of the God Emperor, what happened on that ship is by his grace, I implanted your heart myself ,I know it should not have worked without some miracle please brother you must recons-‘’ he was stopped by Rickus who raised his hand asking for silence.
Just as the apothecary had given up, a primaris space marine walks in to the room.
‘’Report sir, a signal coming from the imperium’’ said the space marine.
‘’It will have to wait until im finished, and someone else will have to listen to it’’ Said Rickus.
‘’Sir its urgent, and it has The Blood Angels Chapter Master seal of approval, Lord Dante requests all Dark angels and their successor chapters listen to it’’ said the space marine.
‘’Well you must of already heard it primaris, tells us what it is’’ said Rickus.
‘Its almost unreal my lord, it is a message from imperium nilhus the half of the galaxy that has been cut off’’ said the primaris space marine.
‘’What could be so important about a message that the Luis Dante himself has approved it?’’ asked Rickus.
‘’The message orders absolutely ALL dark angels and its successors chapters to these coordinates’’ said the space marine.
‘’Orders? Us? No one has that kind of authority over the angels of virtue, nor the Dark Angels for that matter, who ordered this?’’ Asked Rickus.
‘’That’s the unreal part my lord, chapter master Dante assures us that this message comes from the Lion himself, he has appeared’’ said the space marine.
Rickus and Manus looked at each other for a second before Rickus dropped the recording Vox and stepped on it, crushing what he had already recorded, he put on his helmet and gave and order over the Vox to every angel of the ship.
‘’This is chapter master Rickus! We move to these coordinates where we have been informed the Lion shall be, and we will be there with his ship and his old arsenal’’ Rickus looks out into space and speaks again ‘’For we are the sons of the Lion! We are the angels of virtue! And we shall fulfill our destiny at last!’’ screamed Rickus into the Vox.
‘’For the Lion!!’’ screamed all the space marines, and their shouts were heard all over the massive ship, as it headed out to meet what they were told was their gene-father.

END

SPOILER WARNING!

WARNING!!! From this point onward there is a lot of spoilers! Read this character Index down below once you have finished the book for the full experience, thank you!

Angels of Virtue

The angels of virtue are a chapter that was formed after the war of the beast, the inquisition along with the imperium agreed that after Vulkan’s apparent death, that other primarchs needed to be found, this is their story.

Name/Role: Rickus — Chapter Master & High Chaplain

Age: 624 years old

Planet of Origin: Kimmeria

Weapon/Fighting Style: High-impact discipline. Usually wields a Crozius Arcanum and Bolt Pistol. For high-stakes executions, he takes up a Power Sword and Storm Shield.

Brief Summary: A veteran obsessed with the Lion. Taught by his predecessor that the Primarch gave them a second chance, he has risked the chapter repeatedly and even cheated his way into the Chaplaincy to ensure he could lead the hunt.

Secret: He is a secret atheist. Despite his title as High Chaplain, he does not believe the Emperor is a God; he merely uses the faith as a tool to control the Chapter and find the Lion. Additionally, he possesses the "Caliban’s shadow" ability, a potentially warp-tainted power allowing him to teleport to any "Son of the Lion" in his sight.

Status: Alive, Leading his chapter

Name/Role: William — 6th Unit Captain

Age: 283 years old (Physically) / 10k+ (Chronologically)

Planet of Origin: Terra

Weapon/Fighting Style: Savage shock assault. Dual-wields two Power Swords and a Bolt Pistol. Specializes in "Break-In" assassinations and fighting on the move.

Brief Summary: A Primaris Marine originally designated for the Dark Angels before stasis. Assigned to the Angels of Virtue by Guilliman with orders to find the Lion at any cost, he is driven by a desperate need for recognition from his brothers and his Primarch.

Secret: Driven by a pathological need for approval from his peers, he enters a lethal, sensory-deprived trance state to ensure he achieves the recognition he craves, it does not matter if costs him his live, recognition is worth it in his eyes.

Status: Dead-KIA

Name/Role: Oswin — 3rd Unit Captain

Age: 518 years old

Planet of Origin: Unknown (Survivor of Night Lord Raid)

Weapon/Fighting Style: Master Assassin. Power Sword and two Combat Power Knives. Expert in both stealth kills and high-level dueling.

Brief Summary: A former Night Lord who underwent extensive surgery after losing a duel to the late Chapter Master Godfrey. Spared for showing a flicker of warrior spirit, he has since sworn his life to the service of the Angels of Virtue.

Secret: he is a reformed Night Lord. He was a traitor who was "re-forged" into a Dark Angel by Godfrey. His surgical scars hide his true origin from the younger brothers he leads.

Status: Dead-KIA

Name/Role: Manus — 5th Unit Captain (Head Apothecary)

Age: 665 years old

Planet of Origin: Styx

Weapon/Fighting Style: Reactive baiting. Bolt Pistol, Chainsword, and Reductor. Forces enemies to charge his position before cutting them down.

Brief Summary: The chapter’s chief medical officer and interrogator. After witnessing a miracle while fighting alongside the Sisters of Battle, he has become increasingly vocal about his faith in the God-Emperor, creating friction with the chapter's Leader.

Secret: He is Rickus's primary co-conspirator, having secretly implanted the previous Chapter Master’s gene-seed into a Neophyte and surgically added a forbidden "Third Heart" to Rickus.
Status: Alive-Lead apothecary/Right hand of Rickus.

Name/Role: Mikhail — 4th Unit Captain (Head Tech-Marine)

Age: 437 years old

Planet of Origin: Piscina IV

Weapon/Fighting Style: Multi-threaded combat. Bolt Rifle and Combat Knife. Uses mechadendrites for hacking and short-range laser fire.

Brief Summary: Nearly expelled from Martian training for prying into forbidden archives. He is obsessed with uncovering lost technology that could provide the Imperium with a decisive, instantaneous victory over its enemies.

Secret: His true loyalty lies with the Machine God; he values ancient STC data and forbidden technology more than the lives of his brothers or the return of the Lion.

Status: Alive-Granted the iron sleep

Name/Role: Geoffrey — 2nd Unit Captain (Head Librarian)

Age: 687 years old

Planet of Origin: Narcium

Weapon/Fighting Style: Psyker-CQC Hybrid. Power Fist and Force Staff. Relies on a "punch or lightning" tactical loop.

Brief Summary: The oldest survivor of the group. After becoming lost in the warp and losing his navigators, he made a dark bargain with a Warp entity to lead his men home. This granted him the ability to see the future, though at a heavy, undisclosed cost.

Secret: His foresight is the result of a dark bargain with a Warp entity, eventually leading him to become a literal physical vessel for the four powers of Chaos.

Status: Alive-Locked in stasis

Name/Role: Bernard — 1st Unit Captain (Veteran-Champion)

Age: 648 years old

Planet of Origin: All Hallow

Weapon/Fighting Style: Vanguard Wall. Leads from the front with Sword and Shield to form impenetrable shield walls. Against overwhelming odds or in duels, he switches to his massive power hammer, 'Mercy'.

Brief Summary: Driven by the fear of never finding a worthy opponent and seeing his brothers rise in rank, he fought his way to the rank of Champion. He named his hammer "Mercy" as a grim joke directed at Rickus, mocking the Chaplain’s "mercy" during the interrogation of the Fallen.

Secret: He never wanted to be a Space Marine. He spent 600 years fighting and winning not out of duty, but because he was searching for a worthy death.

Status: Dead-KIA

Name/Role: Gabriel — Captain of the Purgewing

Age: Unknown

Planet of Origin: Unknown

Weapon/Fighting Style: Predictive Heavy Assault. Storm Bolter and Power Fist. Uses heavy Terminator plate to corner enemies with calculated strikes.

Brief Summary: A reclusive commander who only speaks when summoned. He spends his time in deep meditation or training. He and his men maintain a low profile aboard the ship, donning standard power armor to blend in when not deployed in their Terminator plate.

Secret: His existence is a myth. Outside of the inner circle, the "Purgewing" is considered a legend. He is the Chapter’s "Final Solution," a nuclear-tier deterrent that is kept hidden in plain sight until the moment of total extinction.

Status: Dead-KIA

The Jass-Vahl (Masters of the night)

These Night lords originally did not have a name, an were just a band of misfits trying to survive, as Kurtz their leader, finally began to find his allies he began to gain more men and resources, still however they are reduced to mercenary work for other warbands, which Kurtz is tired of, and believes they can be more, he named his warband a couple of months before the events of the book.

Name/Role: Kurtz — The Warband Leader

Age: 10,000+ (Physically 862 years old)

Planet of Origin: Nostramo

Weapon/Fighting Style: Wields a specialized Power Claw (inspired by the Talon of Horus) and alternates between a Power Sword or Bolt Pistol. He is a psychological combatant, dismantling his opponent's morale and only striking the killing blow once they feel a false sense of hope.

Summary: A tired survivor of the Thramas Crusade and the Scouring. After centuries of being hunted, he seeks the power and wealth necessary to restore the Night Lords as a feared independent force, ending their days as lowly mercenaries. He is a natural leader who never actively recruited; the others simply followed his shadow.

Status: Dead

Name/Role: Gendor — The Cursed Commander

Age: 10,000+ (Physically 782 years old)

Planet of Origin: Nostramo

Weapon/Fighting Style: Power Sword, Bolt Pistol, and a Combat Shield surgically embedded into his left arm. Blessed/cursed by Slaanesh, his enhanced eyes allow him to move and react with such supernatural speed that he strikes before his victims even hear him coming.

Summary: The first saved by Kurtz during the Scouring. His devotion led him to trade his natural senses to Slaanesh for extreme eyesight, forcing him to use crude mechanical implants to hear. This spiraled into a curse where he feels physical euphoria only when fulfilling Kurtz’s commands.

Status: Dead

Name/Role: Vladius — The Butcher (Fallen Dark Angel)

Age: 10,000+ (Physically 576 years old)

Planet of Origin: Caliban

Weapon/Fighting Style: A massive Two-Handed Greatsword inhabited by a gravity-warping daemon that renders the blade weightless. He relies on his immense, genetically-perfected physique to overwhelm enemies with pure, unstoppable physical strength.

A former defender of Caliban on Luther’s side who felt betrayed by the Lion’s attack. After being hurled through time and space into the Warp, he was found by Kurtz. Fueled by ancient spite, he joined the warband specifically to hunt the sons of the Lion.

Status: Dead

Name/Role: Varrus — The Chaos Summoner

Age: 10,000+ (Physically 889 years old)

Planet of Origin: Nostramo

Weapon/Fighting Style: Sorcerous Staff and an empty "casting" hand. He avoids direct physical confrontation, preferring to drown his enemies in a tide of summoned entities and lethal warp-spells.

Summary: An obsessive ritualist who spent centuries embedded within a Thousand Sons warband. He was eventually expelled for stealing their most guarded arcane secrets. He crossed paths with Kurtz when both were hired as mercenaries for the same Tizcan lord.

Status: Dead

Name/Role: Drak — The Executioner

Age: 10,000+ (Physically 778 years old)

Planet of Origin: Nostramo

Weapon/Fighting Style: Butcher’s Nails interface with a Power Sword and Chainsword. Due to power constraints, he activates them one at a time: the Chainsword for raw, Nails-driven fury, and the Power Sword for defensive finesse and tactical dueling.

Summary: A original member of Kurtz’s squad since the Heresy. Driven by a twisted sense of "gratitude," he crudely implanted the Butcher's Nails from a fallen World Eater into his own skull. He believes the ultimate "thank you" to Kurtz is to eventually kill him and take his throne.

Status: Dead

Name/Role: Kheron — The Vanguard

Age: 10,000+ (Physically 854 years old)

Planet of Origin: Nostramo

Weapon/Fighting Style: Dual Bolt Pistols and mechadendrites. He carries four "folded" Human Servitors on his back; when deployed, they scavenge weapons from the fallen to form an instantaneous, mobile firing squad around him.

Summary: A dark tinkerer obsessed with creating a robot-servitor hybrid capable of killing Astartes. He lived in the lower decks of Kurtz's ship for years, unnoticed until the Chapter Master realized hundreds of his ship’s servitors had gone missing for Kheron’s experiments.

Status: Dead

Name/Role: Talos — The Mad Doctor

Planet of Origin: Nostramo

Age: 10,000+ (Physically 903 years old)

Weapon/Fighting Style: A Rusted Longblade infused with the gifts of Nurgle. Every clash of his blade releases airborne toxins and necrotic diseases, ensuring that even a parried strike can be a death sentence for his enemies.

Summary: The final recruit, he sought Kurtz to escape the complex politics of other Chaos warbands. After a near-fatal injury, he recalled the promises of the Death Guard and pledged his soul to Nurgle for survival, becoming a carrier of Warp-born plagues on the spot just as the Death guard had promised, Unlike other chaos Gods, Nurgle’s Love was instantaneous.

Status: Dead

Edited Sunday at 04:17 AM by Diamanchez

Diamanchez · 2026-04-06T15:29:02Z

Good day Everyone! I hope this finds you all well, thank you all so much for the support and taking an interest in my work! it means a lot, i still would like to know anyone's thoughts on the first book, but regardless i will be posting the prologue and chapter 1 of my second book now, its called the Ravenwatch and the enemies are Orks, however if the You do not like Orks or the Ork linguae is annoying to you, without many spoilers ill just say that the Ork language is not seen through the whole book, but with that, i leave you today with the beginning of my second book, hope you enjoy it! and once again thank you for reading my work.

Ravenwatch
           Shadows of the forgotten Primarch

                              Prologue

The year is 42,000 into the time of mankind, the stars shine in space across the universe where ships battle and explode, planets die and turn into shining lights and then they become nothing more than other stars shining for other people to see, but here and now, in this very planet in the gothic sector, the warriors that dwell within will encounter decisions that might just change the very history as we know it.
The planets name is Corvus, just like the Primarch of the raven guard, it is said that the Raven lord was on his way to the eye of terror when he noticed that an ork warband was attacking the planet, it was small, not a big threat to the overall imperium, but there was no legion, he was alone, just one individual yet still the mighty lord of the nineteenth legion would not ignore this plea for help from the people.
Eight months, for eight months Corvus Corax fought by himself, no reinforcements, no one to help, no one to count on but himself, in the first night he single handedly killed all the war bosses from each major camp and from there, it was a battle of endurance, at the end he liberated the planet, he was injured and battered and still left for the eye of terror like that.
But not before speaking briefly with the people of the planet, and then also left a cape and a gun that helped him during the battle before heading for the eye of terror.
This is where our story begins, on the planet named after its liberator after he left, the raven guard arrived to hear the tale and retrieve what information and equipment they could, some of them left but some stayed.
These raven guard became part of the ‘second founding’ by default, by the time Guiliman had split up the legions into chapters after the horus heresy the sons of the Raven were already making the planet their home base, they then became known as the successor chapter ‘Ravenwatch’ there sole purpose is to wait for their primarch since from what they were told from the locals their lord would one day return.
And so for ten millennia the Ravenwatch have waited In the planet, lending their warriors to nearby battles but never going too far from their planet, them living near the eye of terror keeps them always in shape and ready for battles, however the battles that awaited them were like nothing they had known.
The building is huge, a spiral monastery almost pitch black, surrounded by mountains, thousands of space marine can fit in it, this is the home of the Ravenwatch.
On this planet the light scorches everything and turns it into charcoal, some life has adapted but the night is almost eternal lasting twenty two of the twenty four Terran hours, the planet has become this way after thousands of years of exposure to the eye of terror.
On one of its balconies stands a warrior, tall and muscular, long black silk hair, almost as if you could tell how light the hair weighted, no scars on his face nor any service studs or augmentations just a frown looking In the distance, he breathes in the air as if tasting it, and makes a smiling gesture with his mouth and touches his stubbed beard with his hand.
‘’Is everything ready?’’ the warrior asked.
A space marine emerged from a shadow, almost as if he had been glued to a shadow that a nearby pillar cast.
‘’My lord’’ Said the space marine almost nervously ‘’I did not mean to intrude, that’s why I did not make my presence known I am sorry if disturbed you from meditation how did you kn-‘’
The space marine became quiet as he saw the warrior had turned his whole body and looked at him, even if not scared, a sense of unsureness did cover his spines for a brief second.
‘’Its alright brother, it is no bother at all, I was done meditating a while ago’’ said the space marine as he walked towards the other space marine ‘’let us go now then, if you are here we must not keep out other brothers waiting I assume everyone is still in the training room correct?’’ Said the warrior with black hair.
The warrior felt safe again, almost as if now that the warrior was into directly front of him and not seeing him, he felt secure.
‘’Yes chapter master they have all gathered barely seconds ago’’ Reported the space marine.
The two space marines left for the training room as they arrived they saw everyone had noticed their presence and had stopped moving and looked at the chapter master.
‘’Thank you brothers for coming’’ said the chapter master ‘’I know we just finished fending off the khorne demons a few months ago but we are a chapter that endures and although our watch may seem eternal I have faith it is not for naught’’ Said the Chapter Master of the Ravenwatch.
As the chapter master finished speaking and the space marines saluted, around three hundred space marines stayed there training, mainly the captains who were at the front of the entrance and as the chapter master would speak again a captain spoke first.
‘’it is not for naught, yet you have not done anything new to try and find our father or will you today finally say something Master Kaelan’’ Said Captain Aelios.
Chapter master Kaelan then turned to the captain and spoke.
‘’It is our duty, and our vow to not only protect this planet and its people but stand watch until our primarch returns’’ he then looked around the room and saw everyone’s face ‘’And as you know Captain Aelios, once a battle brother is not fit for service or falls to the ash curse, they go the eye of terror to look for our primarch while we stand watch it has been this way for millennia’’ Said Chapter Master Kaelan.
The captain got close to Kaelan and in a slightly louder tone so everyone could hear.
‘’And how many have returned with any information in all these millennia?’’ as Aelios then turned and looked at his brothers.
‘’None’’ answered the chapter master.
‘’Then why keep doing it? Why not send the whole chapter? We must act and find him not just wait for him’’ Said captain Aelios.
‘’If you want to say something, I would hear you brother, but I have no obligation to answer to you or anyone else, it is I who is the chapter master, less you forget that’’ Said Kaelan looking unbothered.
‘’You are brother you are, however by old decree I can challenge your claim since only the strongest of us may lead us, less YOU forget that’’ said the captain.
As he turned back to the chapter master after confirming his brothers had heard him.
This chapter was chained to the planet, therefore the original chapter master had decreed, that in only to stay in shape, any space marine could challenge the chapter master to a Duel for the right to lead, since the original chapter was afraid the marines might grow weak from staying in one place he believed this would help, the chapter master could only be challenged once a month, however it had been one hundred years since anyone had challenged Kaelan, no one thought it was a wise move.
‘’Very well brother I see no foul play here, an honorable duel it shall be, you may choose the weapons and rules’’ said the chapter master.
‘’I choose lightning claws like the ones we are already wearing, and it shall be the one to draw first blood wins’’ said Aelios as he started slightly crouching while leaning forward.
‘’Very well brother, let us be-‘’
The chapter master could not finish the sentence when a massive shadow was already upon him, clawing forward it was almost like massive threads of shadows were coming out of the space marine’s armor, almost when you come out of the ocean and water is left over and drops due to gravity, so did this shadow fall from the space marine’s armor, for this was an ability the sons of corax could use, not a warp or psyker power but a technique that could be honed and trained.
Captain was not a rank given out easily, Aelios was a veteran and his ‘shadow step’ was second to none, however as the lightning claws turned on you could see the crackling blue lightning above and in the middle of the shadow he was striking at two place at once, the head and the chest, the chapter master almost with no time simply tighten his body, almost as if he’s going to receive the attack head-on however just as the claws are about to hit its target, nothing is felt, the captain passes through what seems to be smoke ,black and dense but no chapter master.
‘’Ill forgive you for interrupting me captain, but do not make the mistake of doing it again, my forgiveness is not easily earned’’ said the chapter master.
He was now standing where the captain had left from almost fifty meters covered without him noticing, but Aelios noticed that his brothers had seen what had happened since they were talking amongst each other, this began to make the captain panic and shadow step again.
Nothing, he hit nothing, but this time he noticed the trail of smoke and followed, and he finally connected the dots.
‘’You use the shadow right? The smoky shadow you can switch yourself with, you switch places with a clone of yourself almost made of pure shadow’’ the captain then began to turn on his jumpack‘’ No one, not even from the raven guard, can do that, you being created from a different method than us must have made you unlock this’’ Said Aelios as he prepared to attack.
But Before the space marine could say anything else Kaelan had already rushed him, the captain struck and knew he would hit smoke and that the chapter master would be behind him, but when he turned around all he saw was a shadow, standing up right in front of him, and in the fraction of a second that it took for him to react he saw a lightning claw on the corner of his eye as it slightly graced his face and drew blood.
‘’I win, duel over’’ said Kaelan.
This was the chapter master’s Unique ability he had because of he was made, he could switch places with his own shadow, as well as move his shadow separately from him to create diversions, the shadow had no weight, and it could not attack, but for someone like Kaelan these were still deadly skills.
In a fit of rage, Aelios tried to shadow step and attack the chapter master, the chapter master out of instinct threw his lightning claw forward, and was going to hit the captain’s chest, however in the last second he turned off his lightning claw and with no power behind it his claw shattered on the captains armor, and ceramite flew all over the place, the chapter master was struck on the lower abdomen just barely enough to draw the slightest of blood and the captain spoke.
‘’Now we are even’’ said captain Aelios.
Space marines rushed to their chapter master and some even tried to rush Aelios.
‘’Captain Aelios Darkwatch!’’ screamed Chaplain Thorne.
He was the main chaplain of the chapter and if anyone would provide discipline or punishment it would be him, but before anyone else could move, everyone felt a cold chill in the room, it covered their toes, then their ankles, then legs, abdomen, all the way to the back of the brain, and it came from the chapter master, he was extremely angry, a frown that would hide his eyes would form and he spoke.
‘’We are not like this, we do not get riled up, we do not panic like this, we do not argue, we are better than this’’ he then took the blood from his wound with his hand and threw it on the floor ‘’There, my blood has been spilled as well as the captain’s, it is fair, now everyone back to your duties and then me and the captains will have a meeting here, now’’ Said Kaelan.
There was not a second of doubt when the room had already started clearing, after a few minutes the captains and the chapter master were all alone.
‘’We stand vigil because it is our duty, we answer the call if its within our sector, and I know when Abaddon launched his twelfth Black crusade some of you wanted to go’’ as he looked mainly ad Aelios ‘’But it was not and immediate threat to us or our mission, therefore I gave the order not to proceed’’ Explained Kaelan.
The captains looked at each other and then nodded at the chapter master.
‘’I know our gene seed flaw is an issue, however with meditation and training it can be controlled, we the veterans are proof, and the ones who search for our lord always leave in good faith never cast out’’ Said Kaelan.
The captains looked on with their full attention on the chapter master it was not normal to have a meeting in such place, something had clearly happened.
‘’And now after this little scuffle I hope everything is clear, we have been called upon to help the imperium’’ said the chapter master
he then signaled a space marine to speak.
‘’We have been receiving signals of a nearby solar system in war against orks, and the black templars have pushed them back however they cannot finish them off since they have taken heavy losses’’ said sergeant Rylan Blackthorn and continued while projecting the planet on an hologram ‘’They are on the last major battle in this planet but all the orks gathered up and could turn things around’’ Said Rylan.
The captains looked at each other almost as if confused, they were to always stand vigil, and the planet was closer to the eye of terror than it was to them it almost made no sense.
‘’The chapter needs this, we need to help the imperium we must not only be statues waiting, we must be the shadows that envelop the enemies of the empire’’ said chapter master Kaelan ‘’ Our black templars cousins have called for our help, and the sons of Corvus corax shall answer’’ Said Kaelan.
The captains all nodded and gave the salute for the chapter, as they were all leaving they could all clearly feel a chill again coming form the chapter master but when they looked to find him, he was already gone, he had gone to the balcony once again where he would gather his thoughts and prepare his resolve.
For the upcoming battle would be grueling and brutal for sure, but the choices he would be forced to make would be like anything he had ever gone through, and almost as if his body felt it, as almost as if you feel like something huge is coming for you to hit you full force, that’s how he felt for a second.
He then looked at night sky, the moon shinning on the world and the cold wind on his skin making his cape flutter, and the gun on his side which by tradition all chapter masters of the Ravenwatch would wear in honor of their primarch that left it there so he could recognize them, and know how long they waited for him some day.
He then took a breath to taste the wind and smiled as he looked all around him taking in the scene, he put his hand over the pistol and spoke to himself out loud.
‘’This really is a beautiful place, I wonder if this is what you saw as well father?’’ said the chapter master as his sadness took over and for a second all his pupils had gone black.
It was only for a fraction of a second before eyes returned to normal, he then put his helmet on and left, not knowing if he would ever see this scenery again not knowing if they would return or not.

                           Chapter 1
                                              Conflict

The planets name was Kyneryth, which was once a beacon of hope being so close to the eye of terror, yet it was a strong and civil planet with its people swearing its loyalty to the empire, constant chapters would rotate to help it with incursions from demons, but demons were not the ones attacking this time, it was the Orks.
The planet had once large forests and rivers all around while its people farmed and paid the tithe space marines would reinforce it, now however, almost all its green was gone, and very few rivers were left at all, the battle on this planet had been going on for six months before the black templars finally requested help from another space marine chapter.
In the middle of a forest the sound of war rages, as orks ram and kill space marines and astra militarum alike, the imperium has begun stop sending reinforcements, and if the war does not stop soon the black templars and the Death Korps of Krieg currently fighting might just lose this crusade and all their deaths will have been for nothing at all.
‘’ haha dis iz fun beaky boy’’ said an Ork.
The space marine was black templar with no helmet and wounded, he held in his hand a black blade, this was an Emperor’s Champion of the black templars.
‘’Die you beast!’’ screamed the space marine.
He then swung an overhead strike to try and land clean across the middle of the orks skull however the blade was caught by the orks mechanical claw.
‘’Nice try hoomie’’ said the ork.
As he began to lift the champion by his sword, the chain tied to his arm bound him to the sword and as he was being lifted up, the ork started punching the black templars abdomen making him cough blood, he was about to deliver the final blow when with his other hand the champion reached into his side and grabbed a short knife, and with no hesitation he stabbed it into the ork’s right eye the ork let him go and scream in pain.
‘’wot have ya done? ya will teef for dis!’’ as the ork lifted his gaze to look for the space marine.
The ork could not react in time for what was coming, it was the full force of a black templar champion, both hands tightly holding his blade, with no room for error, with ultimate precision, the blade entered the head of the ork and made its way down the middle, cleanly splitting him two.
As guts and what seemed to be spores poured on the ground the black templar saw that he had no time to breathe for in his eyesight at least fifty orks were already coming at him.
‘’The emperor protects’’ Said champion Edward.
As the black templar prepared to meet his enemies he raised his sword to counter the first attack but it never reached him.
From the distance to his left, a squad of twenty black templars had emerged in the forest, they had finally caught up to their champion and with a zealous fury they opened fire and bolter muzzle light and stripes of white where the bullets would pierce the air filled the battlefield.
The orks focusing on rushing tried to switch their target from the champion to the space marines, but it was too late, they were mowed down and slaughtered, their limbs flew apart some heads exploded in one shot, others simply fell from a clean shot, while other orks would try to stand just to be stepped on or killed by the upcoming bolter fire, so was the result of a perfectly placed attack by twenty space marines and their bolter on automatic, as the black templars finished off whatever was moving they got near their champion and spoke.
‘’Are you okay brother?’’ asked a space marine.
‘’Yes brother, nothing to worry about, how is the situation looking on our end?’’ Asked Edward.
‘’Yes my lord, we are currently retreating towards the hive city we took from the orks, and have noticed they started camping in these woods, we could regroup or press forwards we await your command brother’’ Said the black templar space marine.
The champion looked around and saw the battlefield and heard the fire of bolter rifle, he followed his instincts and decided to follow the loudest noise surely their help will be needed the most.
‘’I want you to contact the other squads and send them to this position and we shall meet them there’’ said Edward.
As the black templars moved through the forest they saw where the main battle was now taking place, Millions upon Millions of orks were attacking the gates of a hive city, where the death Korps of Krieg and black templars where fighting, normally the plan would be to break the enemies back line and regroup in the city however Edward also saw that ork war boss had left their base, if he could attack and take down the ork leader they could surely finally win this long war and if he and his one hundred men were to die trying, it would be a worthy end.
‘’We shall split up into five teams of twenty! two teams will go up and try to act as the vanguard the rest we will follow through and support, for the God Emperor!’’ shouted Edward.
‘’For the God Emperor!!’’ shouted the black templars back to him.
The soldiers ran and rushed as far as they could, the plan was simple, have the first forty men rush and keep the enemies attention and push as far as they could and the rest would arrive and push even further thus making it to the ork war boss or so that was the plan the champion had thought of in desperation of ending this.
The space marines started rushing a hill where the ork warboss was at and just as they stepped out of the forest and tried to make their way up the hill, what should have been a short ten second sprint to cover three hundred meters never happened, for in an instant all forty space marines that had made ran out of the forest had all been wiped out, they were dead, the bodies part flew up, helmets with heads in them flew up, complete dead and immobile bodied flew up all because the black templars had been hit by something at extremely high speeds.
And no matter how much of a demi-God one can be, no one is immune to gravity, and they were being hit fast and hard with heavy orks riding their bikes, these were the dangerous speedboyz painted in red to go faster.
‘’Hey? wot was dat? iz 'der more ova 'der?’’ said on ork to another.
The other ork was removing a piece of a skull from his chain axe when the rest of the speedboyz were finishing off whatever black templar they had not killed in the first strike.
‘’Dese ones were no fun, lets see if dose are different’’ said the ork that was leading the pack of speed freaks.
The black templars were now exposed, no more element of surprise, even if they could somehow fend off these enemies the main force would notice them for sure, and then they would be doomed, and the black templar champion knew this, still he was the leader at the moment and needed to give and order even if it would be his last and he spoke.
‘’My brothers prepare for battle! We shall vanquish our foes and then take the head of their leader! For the God Emperor!’’ screamed Edward as he readied his sword.
Just as the speed freaks were going to reach the black Templars, their bikes which were casting a shadow began to what seemed to be like a transformation, no, not a transformation it was an apparition.
There was twenty orks and all of them were having the same problem they were no longer the only ones in their vehicles because from the shadows space marines emerged, these were special even among their chapter they were psykers but not in the traditional sense, instead of shooting lightning out their hands or predicting the future, they could bend shadows to their whim and use them how they liked, even as a means to hide and transportation.
‘’whats dis? 'oo are yer?’’ said an ork.
He could barely finish his sentence when he found a lightning claw piercing his jaw from the bottom making its way all the to its skull, killing it in an instant.
The ork leader however, since he was at the back of the pack, had seen the shadows from a different point of view and saw the vehicles were the problem, since they had shadows with people appearing from them.
‘’Br'n it on now, no more tricks’’ said the ork speedboss.
One of the ravens saw this and started making his way to him before stopping, the ork then became confused.
‘’ whats go'n on? yer scared now? well no matta ill jus have ta kome ta yer den’’ said the ork.
The space marine simply turned around and started walking away, almost as if the battle was already over.
Before the ork could run after him he noticed his shadow had a different shape, he saw that his shadow was not just his own, he noticed someone was behind him and before he could turn around completely the last thing he saw was the muzzle fire from a silenced pistol from a Ravenwatch space marine, it was a clean soundless headshot, the ork fell and would not rise.
‘’Targets eliminated my lord’’ said one space marine to the captain of this squad.
‘’Good, cast a veil and be ready to move in five’’ Said captain Vesper
the sons of corax approached the sons of Dorn and before they could even speak the black templar champion spoke.
‘’What are you doing?! We cant stand around here! any second now we will be discovered and killed we need to rush them before they notice us!’’ said Edward.
Vesper looked unbothered not a single expression was made and spoke with a neutral tone.
‘’Calm down black templar cousin’’ said captain Vesper.
As three Ravenwatch psykers stepped in front of the and began to move shadows all around them almost like a veil covering them a big shadow hid them from the enemy.
‘’I am Vesper Nightwing captain of the Ravenwatch and here we can talk, if even for a few minutes, I shall tell you the escape plan and we shall then leave’’ Said Vesper.
‘’Escape? What do you mean escape?!’’ exclaimed Edward ‘’I am the emperor’s champion! me and my men were going to storm the war boss and win this war!’’ said Edward.
Captain Vesper looked at him almost as if he had not heard him and simply said.
‘’You would have lost two more squads and being behind enemy lines you would have simply died for no reason’’ explained the Ravenwatch captain.
‘’You do not know that! With the God Emperor on our side, we are more than simple space marines, we asked for reinforcements for the God Emperor’s fury, we expected the gold of the custodes or the fire of the salamanders. Instead, you crawl out of the shadows like vermin while my brothers bleed for every inch of this soil!’ Screamed the black templar champion.
The Ravenwatch captain took a couple of seconds to answer but when he did he was direct almost as if ignoring the black templar who had been fighting non-stop for months.
‘’We arrived hours ago, we infiltrated their shadows and followed them, it was only when we noticed power armor signals that we knew you were here, had we not, things would have been worse’’ Said Vesper.
Vesper stepped towards the champion and spoke to him face to face in a lower tone.
‘’You could take that as the God Emperor’s work, he sent us for you in a sense, my snipers have already noticed more incoming, if you stay here you will ‘die with honor’ but this world will fall by morning, what we need now is a tactical withdrawal sixty Astartes cannot overcome millions of orks’’ said the captain looking straight into the black Templars eyes.
Edward could only look into this space marines eyes and think how could an Astartes not want to have an honorable battle and fight the God Emperor’s enemy no matter the cost?
‘’You speak with the cold tongue of a machine cousin, where is your zeal? Where Is your soul?’’ Asked the Champion.
Then in Edward’s helmet, in his HUD, he started receiving an escape route and point of meeting when retreating, the Ravenwatch captain had already hacked his armor and then turned around and began walking towards his men, and then shadows started to distort as his feet almost becoming one with the shadows, and he spoke in a low but menacing tone.
‘’My Zeal is in the silence of the enemy’s lungs, my soul is kept for the primarch’s return, follow the marks on you HUD champion, or stay and be loud, the orks always enjoy a loud death, but us? We prefer a quite victory’’ said Vesper.
The Ravenwatch then disappeared into the shadows and the veil that they had over them began to disappear, the champion began to look at his remaining battle-brothers and saw they were scarred and wounded, tired, and almost breathless, but they would follow him anywhere, their hearts were set on whatever the champion decided, and as the black templars began to become exposed again Edward spoke.
‘’We will follow this route, the ravens will open the way and we shall meet up with the marshal in the hive city, and launch a counter attack with our full force!’’ ordered the champion ‘’For the God Emperor! For Dorn!” screamed Edward.
‘’For the God emperor! For Dorn!’’ screamed the black templars as they headed for the escape route.

The hive city was damaged and battered, buildings were crumbling and lower levels were filled with civilians and the wounded and sick, the orks had been trying to lay siege for months now, and were unable to break the walls, but the walls were cracking, the regular militia and Korps of Krieg and the black templars were not infinite and their numbers were dwindling.
The front gate was receiving the worst of it from a higher point of view it seemed like a green colored sea was clashing again and again against the hive city walls the orks would yell.
‘’ WAAAGH!!’’ repeatedly as they crashed into the walls.
And their rhythmic and unsynchronized pounding of heavy machinery could be heard all across the city, where fear could take place in the citizens, and the green tide of orks even had their smell all around the city at every edge you could smell what seemed to be rotten vegetation and wet animal fur mixed in with millions of ‘Dakka’ rounds smell of sulfur covered the sky.
The PDF of the planet was almost wiped out, but there was still around one hundred thousand soldiers left of the planetary defense force, however it was mainly made up of whoever on the planet can hold a weapon, not the highest quality of soldiers but a lasgun shot to the head of an ork did the same damage no matter who shot it.
And side by side the PDF on the main lines in the trenches around the gate, and on the lookout, and standing shoulder to shoulder in perfect unison were the death Korp of Krieg, and they would fire in perfect, mechanical volleys, and their bayonets would be fixed and ready for the inevitable charge of the orks.
‘’Hold the line! Do not rush in! Do not die needlessly! And for the love of terra do not forget to reload!’ screamed a commissar in the front lines.
The Krieg and the PDF shot and shot until from the gates opening came the giants clad in black armor, around one hundred and fifty Astartes stormed the gate outside to push back its attackers, their heavy fury cleaved their foes, and their burning heart melted the head of their enemies with holy bolter fire.
The orks not knowing how to feel pain just kept rushing into the templars line of fire and swords, all to meet death and steel, heads flew up, guts were spilled, limbs fell, followed by ork blood, every Astartes would kill at least twelve orks before even being touched or wounded.
And at the head of the charge was a captain with a bolter rifle on automatic, mowing down anything that was green while in front of him was their Marshall, a tall warrior with four golden studs in his head showing his veteran status, all he had was a bolter pistol in one hand and a power sword on the other, and on his backpack an iron halo protected him from ranged attacks as he rushed to reinforce the troops.
‘’Maintain the line! Do not surrender! Do not let them break through!’’ screamed Marshall Alphonse.
As the black templars were able to push the orks back. it was not enough, millions of orks were just too much they would have to retreat but at this point that would cost them even more men, he would have either make a last stand and rush for the war boss or retreat and take heavy losses, the sun was setting, in the dark it would be even harder to coordinate after hours of fighting.
The Marshall had made his choice, and was about to yell out his orders, then all the orks stayed still and then out of nowhere started fighting each other while retreating to the middle of their encampment.
It was almost as if all the orks every single one had felt a shift on the waaaggh! Energy around the planet.
‘’Someth'n happened,we need ta talk everyone back now!’’ from one of the large orks in the back.
The green tide somewhat subsided and stopped clashing into the imperium, the Marshall thought this was his chance but the orks they were fighting right in front of them would not let them retreat nor advance and the killing kept happening on both sides.
The orks tried one last push before retreating to their siege camp but they were stopped, they had noticed that as the sun had gone down, it started casting more and more shadows from trees and tanks and the orks themselves ,but these shadows seemed strange somehow.
‘’Hey kome ere, duz dis shadow look weird ta yer?’’ said one ork to the other.
‘’Wot do yer mean weird? its jus a shadow it kant hurt yer’’ answered the other ork.
Then they tried to move forwards to the black templars they saw that their shadows stayed behind not moving, almost as if in locked in place, both orks turned to face each other and then one spoke surprised.
‘’Wow yer know wot? 'dat iz weird, lets blast it jus 'n kase’’ said one of the orks.
And just as they pointed their guns at the shadow, a pair of lightning claws started emerging from the shadow, blue lightning crackled as the orks who had no idea what was going were slashed across the throat with a lightning claw, both orks had their throat severed, cutting deep enough to go through the windpipe and the arteries of the ork, and this was happening to all the orks that were rushing and not retreating.
‘’What’s going on my lord?’’ asked one black templar to Marshall Alphonse.
‘’The ravens’’ said the Marshall with a concerned and almost disgusted look on his face.
‘’And they are using some sort of heretical psyker ability, they have no shame’’ said the Marshall with a grim tone.
‘’We are the Ravenwatch’’ Said a space marine standing behind the Marshall.
The black templars on instinct lifted their weapons up before seeing that it was a space marine talking.
‘’My name is captain Aelios Darkwatch, and we have answered you call my templar cousins’’ Said Aelios.
‘’Hmph, the call was for reinforcements to finish this war, seeing as how that is not yet done we still have to see if you have what it takes to ‘answer the call’, raven’’ Said the Marhsall.
The raven guard captain looked indifferent and did not react at all simply spoke.
‘’Our chapter master wishes to speak to you and everyone in charge, get them together so we can disc-‘’ the captain was interrupted.
‘’You do not give me orders boy! and I would talk to you chapter master here and now where is he?’’ Asked the Marshall.
Aelios did not seemed bothered that he had been interrupted by Alphonse, he simply answered.
‘’No one knows, ever since he became a chapter master he has the habit of first scouting the planet himself in person, all alone’’ said Aelios.
‘’You lost your chapter master? What kind of leader gives no order or directions simply goes off to play hero?’’ asked Alphonse.
The black templars were at their limit both physically and mentally, it had been a grueling fight for months, and you could tell in their armors.
All with scars on their battle plates and shoulder guards, you could tell on how they no longer stood straight up, but rather almost crouched as if wishing to sit but could not, the Ravenwatch captains saw all this and decided the best approach would be a simple and direct one like all Ravenguard are.
‘’Our chapter master goes to find data, weak points and high priority targets all before we even show up and before the battle, he tells us where and when to meet him to discuss the next step, the only reason you saw us today first, it’s because he said your losses would be too great unless we interfere immediately’’ Said Aelios.
The Marshall was going to argue back but they were stopped at a sudden rumble at their feet and then they saw where the noise was coming from, the rumbling came from outside, there, sixty black templars running for the entrance being chased by orks on their vehicles, it was Edward the Emperor’s champion.
‘’Also, one of our squads found your Emperor’s champion and is bringing him back to us, come to the meeting room within the hour, we do not know why the orks retreated, nor how long we have, we must be quick’’ Said Aelios.
The ravengaurd then all disappeared into the shadows, then the Marshall gathered a squad and went out to meet Edward and cover their retreat, after thirty minutes of rest, all space marines when back to guarding positions, and kept shooting at the sea of ork whenever it got too close, for now the imperium had time to plan.
The building was huge, it had been used as monastery before but the war had claimed most of it and now only one huge room and several smaller chambers remained, but it was here where the black templar ran their whole operation from, and so they all gathered. Black templars leaders, the PDF and Krieg leader, and the Ravenwatch were all here, except the Chapter master of the Ravenwatch, he still had not shown himself, Alphonse was tired of waiting and decided to start the meeting.
''We shall start now, there is no point in waiting any longer, and I am in charge of this crusade you can just rely the orders later to your chapter master’’ said Alphonse.
The Ravenwatch members did not say anything nor nod nor acknowledge what the black templar had said they simply stood still just as they had when everyone had arrived.
‘’As you all know I am Current Marshall Alphonse, this is our Champion Edward, and this is Castellan Eric, and all three of us are all that’s left from the black templars crusade, our previous Marshall died to the ork war boss a month ago when he tried to kill the leader himself’’ The black templar then looked at the two men standing in the room and looked back at the ravengaurd ‘’And these two are our only Astra militarum leaders we have commissar Dreir of the Astra militarum and we have Colonel 186 of the death Korps of Krieg’’ said the Marshall as both men simply nodded.
The Marshall continued to look at the Ravenwatch expecting and answer or some sort of interaction their silence was now beginning to vex him.
‘’Like I said, I am captain Aelios this is Captain Vesper and this is our chaplain Thorne Grimveil and our Librarian Corvin Duskpear and my sergeant Rylan Blackthorn, we are the Ravenwatch, and we will talk strategy once our chapter master arrives, in the meantime if you would like, we can discuss numbers and try to figure out our placement’’ Said Aelios in a neutral tone without even saluting anyone or acknowledging anyone.
So was the way of the Ravenguard, they were disconnected, aloof and almost cold in their demeanor, just because for them, actions mattered more than words, and what needed to be said was always kept short and simple with no hint of emotion in their words, the sons of the raven save their emotions for when the matter most, in battle.
The Marshall looked annoyed and wanted to begin the planning for the battle, but he knew that knowing the number of his allies and them theirs this would help so he began with the report.
‘’We have two hundred black templars left and some are injured, we have one hundred thousand PDF forces left and around four hundred thousand Krieg’s left at the beginning we were one thousand black Templars and three million PDF and one million Korps of Krieg, now we have been reduced like this I ask you, how many did you bring raven?’’ asked the Marshall.
‘’We have brought seventy Astartes and twenty are on the ship guarding it so currently only fifty Ravenwatch member are on the planet’’ Said the chaplain Thorne.
‘’Is this a joke? Do you come only to watch us die? To pick up whatever scrap you can take back with you to your planet where you hide and keep eternal watch?’’ asked Marhsall Alphonse now incredibly angry ‘’ This is a disrespect to us, we have requested reinforcements yet you come only to help us with what? To die? To retreat? We will not retreat, after so much loss’’ Said The Marshall.
The captain of the shadow squad who had saved Edward earlier tried to speak.
‘’We saved your champion with few men, he can testify for our mettle, if you wish to ask him yo-‘’ he was not able to finish the sentence.
‘’You snuck up on an enemy, and with no honor, killed them while my brothers bled fighting them face to face, we cannot continue like this, so you will have to follow my command, for I am in charge of this crusade and you will listen’’ said the Marshall as he looked at the ravens one by one to see if anyone would speak up or ague anything, but there was nothing but silence.
‘’Good, now that I have your attention here is the deal, there is around three million orks outside so we cannot overcome them easily, our previous Marshall tried and died, he did however reach the main ork war boss whose name is Rip-Grinda, he is a massive ork who even amongst orks he has never lost a battle he carries a two handed massive great chainaxe that cuts Astartes in half with ease but the main reason he is known as rip-grinda it is because he has installed chain blade int his tusks and mouth making a bite from him a death blow’’ the Marshall said.
in the middle of the table where the battlefield was being projected a face came up with the orks giant head, just his face was bigger than an Astartes chest, and it had grinding teeth and tusks.
‘’How does that work?’’ finally a raven talked, Asked Rylan.
It was the young if three hundred years of service could be called ‘young’ sergeant Rylan he was genuinely curious on how such a thing was possible.
‘’We do not know, they just work’’ answered the Marshall ‘’All that we know is this he is extremely powerful, and killed the previous Marshall along with a squad of space marines all by himself, and to go along with that, their siege camp is an extremely difficult maze to get through, making it almost impossible to reach the Rip-grinda, so for that, you and your fifty men will infiltrate and sabotage their weapons and cause a ruckus basically taunt them into leaving their base, once they do and they are out on the open we the black templars will rush out with our full might and kill the orkboss with all our men, if he can take on one Marshall and a squad of twenty veteran space marines we will need all the manpower we can to bring it down’’ The Marshall looked around once again waiting for answer and still just silence was their response.
‘’You will do this, and you will start tonight, I am familiar with your blasphemous powers of shadow, so I’m giving you a chance to fight at night, just leave the big boss to us and you can use your tactics and tricks to help the imperium, not bad if you ask me, and considering I am in charge I don’t think you have too much of a choice’’ said Marhsall Alphonse.
The room was silent, none of the ravens would speak and this vexed the Marshall to his limit, and just as a vein was popping out of his forehead in anger and was going to yell at the ravens, all the room suddenly felt cold, the commissar and the Krieg leader even started crouching into a ball and rubbed their shoulders to try to stay warm, the black templars had never felt anything like it, it was like an animal or an organism or just really cold water was moving inside their bodies, first their toes, then their ankles, then their legs ,their waist, then stomach, then chest, then neck all the way to the back of their skulls, it was a chilling sensation neither them nor any Astartes had felt before, except the Ravenwatch, they knew what this meant.
‘’I have a better plan my Lord’’ said a voice from the entrance of the giant room.
And as if they were ordered to, everyone in the room felt that this voice was the cause of the chill, that this voice was something they needed to look out for and in the entrance a space marine could be seen with black armor and silver trim, long black hair and wings on his jumpack, along with thunder claws, and a pistol on his side, all while a cape fluttered on his side, this cape was used under the shoulder guard it was not meant to be worn in the back since it would interfere with the jumpacks, it would cover the chapter Masters left hand all the way to his wrist and on it, the symbol of the chapter was present.
‘’This will make you understand why my plan will be better, Marshall Alphonse’’ Said chapter master Kaelan.
As he threw, what seemed to be huge rock, from the entrance all the way to the table where they were projecting everything, and the object seemed the size of a space marines chest, and as the object landed on the middle of the table everyone looked at it and then looked back the Marshall who was stunned.
‘’How? What Trickery is this? How is this possible?’ Asked Alphonse.
As they all looked back down at the table the projection of the massive Ork war boss was still on, the projection and the object the chapter master Kaelan had thrown was the exact same thing
It was the severed head of ork warboss rip-grinda, clearly dead and beheaded, and then they all looked back at the chapter master who did not have any blood, any stain, or any injury on him only his boots were dirty from the blood and mud and all that he had stepped on.
‘’We only have a few hours, before I left they were already fighting for a new boss, we have a couple hours at best to fully decimate them, now I shall tell you all my plan’’ Said Kealan.
The black templars and astra militarum were still in shock, but began to listen to the plans of this Nihilistic space marine.

Diamanchez · 2026-04-07T14:37:43Z

Chapter 2
Discussion

The forest that had once been plentiful on this planet was now gone and all these orks had replaced it, in the middle of the forest all the way to the gates of the hive city the orks fought each other for the next orkboss to rise, since only the mightiest can rule among these creatures.
The main forces of this huge Waaaagh!! Was the stormboyz and the fastboyz, and the savageboyz being the biggest portion with their hand to hand and close quarters this Waaaagh!! Was deadly indeed, now that the main leader formerly a savageboy has died, everyone felt a rip on the Waaagh!! Aura, and veil that controlled them, almost all became instantly feral towards each other.
All of them expect the stomrboyz and fastboyz since they technically have their own bosses, they can still operate but the stormboyz decided to run experiments rather than fight, and the fastboyz began to ride as fast as they can crashing and killing whatever is on their way, not really having any aim at the moment.
The savageboyz are in the middle main encampment fighting right in the middle are the most savage and biggest and former bodyguards of the previous ork war boss, the stormboys are still trying new ways to handle psyker energy and the fastboyz who lost men earlier are looking for their attackers not knowing the space marines are long gone already.
‘’i dont fing dey are ere boss’’ said one of the orks to their leader while they rode their war bikes.
‘’i know dey aint ere,shut yer tusks or ill shut it for yer’’ said Ruff’zog zigzer the current boss of the speed freaks.
A massive ork larger than your average Ork, showing how old he was, since all orks never stop growing and the more they win, the faster they grow, this particular boss had been able to win so much thanks to his cunningly mind and also his crude raw thirst for battle and the blood of his enemies, he held a Dakka on his side while driving with his normal hand, for this other hand he had a claw implant with motor rotor saw in between the finger shredding anything he touched, and he was angry he could not find his enemies.
‘’Ova ere boss, i found some tracks ta ‘da 'umiez’’ said Snikrot Zippy his second in command.
This ork was almost as large as his boss, but had no implants or anything, he liked to feel the wind in his skin and he only cared about going fast and faster each day, he held an assault rifle Dakka, and a clamped up of wood, metal, and tape and on his back carried a chainaxe.
‘’Da tracks lead ta da hive city we will have ta wait until dey kome out’’ said Snikrot.
As he stopped his war bike and looked at the thousands of war bikes coming in the horizon, these orks were waiting for the battle to be fought on the outside since they could not make their way into the hive city.
Ruff’zog looked at the battlefield and saw that there was something different, almost as if he could see the humans fighting softer but with caution, almost as if to not lose more men but not for attrition, but for another plan another attack.
‘’I have a mission for yer Snikrot, if yer kan kill all 'da 'umiez 'oo are gunna kome outta 'da city yer kan keep 'da fast freeks’’ Said Ruff’zog As he pointed an ork to hand over the banner to his second in command.
‘’All ya have ta do iz go really fast an' kill 'umiez’’ said the fast freeks boss.
‘’Really boss? yeah i kan do it watch me, for ‘da WAAAGH!’’ said Snikrot
Then their bikes took off towards the entrance to begin hunting for the imperial forces, all while Ruff’zog looked at his troops and smiled, he had a plan, and it was brutally cunning.

The space marines were all listening to the man who had just come in and now was in front of them, everyone but the ravens felt the same thing, and uneasy feeling almost like if something was in their way, something bothered them, it was a presence, a feeling, something in your body just knows and their bodies were telling them to be on guard for this man.
‘’I am chapter Master Kaelan Shadowstrike’’ Said the chapter master.
Now shoulder to shoulder with his men he turned and faced the black templars and the astra militarum across the table and continued.
‘’We have answered the call to arms for this battle, and will be here until the orks are no longer a threat’’ he said as he looked at astra militarum ‘’You, colonel and commissar I would like to hear a more detail report of your current numbers and losses please’’ Said Kaelan.
The colonel and the commissar were surprised and shocked even, since when did a space marine say please?
‘’As far as PDF goes, we have one hundred thousand soldiers all ready and lasgun full of ammo the only issues is that we are low on medical supplies and we are no longer receiving reinforcements for the numbers, you are the only ones that came my lord’’ Said commissar Dreid.
The raven guard chapter master simply nodded almost as saying thank you and turned to the colonel.
‘’We have lost seventy percent of our resources but will be able to replenish it all within three months’ time since we are far away from our home world’’ Said colonel 186.
‘’Resources?’’ asked the Ravenwatch chapter master.
‘’Yes my lord, like we mentioned earlier we have lost over a million soldiers therefore seventy percent of our resources’’ The colonel said again in a neutral tone.
The colonel did not read the report with malice or anger or with any sorrow for that matter but with clinical focus of an accountant, to him the millions dead weren’t father or sons they were simply a spent resource, a utilitarian sacrifice made to ensure the wars gears kept turning for another second another minute or another hour or however long time it bought them, these death Korps of Kreig are also simple and cold and calculating like the raven guard, but where the ravengaurd would be this way because they wanted to produce results as soon as possible to save life as quickly as they can, the Krieg wanted to risk their lives as quickly as they could to produce results in battle.
‘’That will be all, thank you’’ said Kaelan
As the Ravenwatch chapter master was going to continue speaking he was beaten to it by someone else.
‘’Are you done? Can we get to the main point your probably already knew everything you asked’’ said Marshall Alphonse.
As the black templar ignored any opportunity for conversation, he set up a projection on the table of the stronghold
‘’What is your plan, raven?’’ Asked the Marshall
Kaelan said nothing he simply pointed to the main gate and spoke with precision.
‘’We will now get behind enemy lines and execute any named orks to prevent the raise of another war boss, then we will push them back from behind while you then come out of the city and rush as well, making it a pincer attack’’ Said the chapter master.
‘’Come out of the city? Would we not be at the front already?’’ asked the Marshall.
‘’For this strategy to work you and most of your men will need to stay as a reserve in the city the PDF the Krieg and Rylan and myself will lead the main gate with them, we will keep as many as we can alive, and then once my men have eliminated the named orks you will come out and strike’’ Says the Chapter master.
The Marshall had an upset look on his face he got closer to the chapter master until they were face to face.
‘’My vows do not allow hesitation, you ask us to dig trenches and defend? We are the sons of Dorn, but we are not the walls- we are the breach, we are the hammer! If you will not lead the charge stand aside and witness how a true crusade is conducted’’ Said The Marshall.
Kaelan said nothing for a second not to contemplate the answer, but more so to try and understand how a plan that would guarantee victory not be suitable for someone, and so even though they are not ‘passionate’ in a traditional sense, even the sons of Corax would react to someone questioning their mettle.
‘’The raven guard and its successor have learned the price of ‘boldness’ on the black sands of Isstvan V. We do not throw lives away for the sake of a chant or a vow. If your brothers wish to be martyrs, the God Emperor will surely welcome them. But if you wish to win this war you will hold your ground until the throat is exposed’’ Kaelan leaned in closer to the Marshall and spoke in a grim tone ‘’A hammer is useless if it shatters against the first wall it hits, son of Dorne’’ Said Kaelan.
The Marshall had enough his anger could no longer be contained, he was asked to hold his blade, and now he was angry from what he understood to be an insult, when in reality the chapter master just spoke facts with a cold demeanor.
The Marshall reached for his sword full of fury, he would swing in full force, the power sword would hit the right arm, cut his stomach and then come out the left arm, cutting Kaelan clean in half, however the sword never left its owners hip, as soon Alphonse had put his fingers on the hilt of the Sword he could see in front of him the chapter master had not moved at all, but behind him near his right ear he could clearly hear it, the crackling lightning coming from a claw of a Ravenwatch space marine.
‘’What were you planning on doing with that sword, Lord Marshall?’’ asked Aelios.
The black templars quickly moved to try to defend their Marshall but if the Ravenwatch captain wanted, the Marshall would already be dead.
‘’Enough’’ Said Alphonse.
He knew they were in a losing position and there was no time to fight against each other.
Kaelan looked and Aelios and nodded signaling the captain to stand down and he did, and returned to the Chapter Master’s side, the black templar Marshall then spoke.
‘’My actions almost got the better of me, but if it must be my words that make the point then so be it, you ask this of us but do not offer any guarantee of success, I have seen your records and seen that when the Astartes where called for the defense of Cadia you did not answer, when they called for aid on the Indominus crusade you did not answer, now you come with seventy men and expect us to believe we can win even more easily?’’ Spoke Alphonse.
The chapter master took no time to answer he would be logical and direct.
‘’Fifty men, seventy of us did come but some are on the ship, and I’ve sent the rest to other tasks in other planet around the system just avoid any other inconveniences’’ Said the chapter master
‘’Fifty Freaking Astartes? Are you Mad?’’ Said the Marshall.
‘’I am not, and as far as not answering those calls, we did participate in the war of the beast and the war for Armageddon since we will always fight orks just as our father did when he was last seen in our home planet’’ Said Kaelan almost as if he was done speaking.
But the Marshall was not done.
‘’Now you cannot deny you have participated raven, now you cannot deny that there was report that when you did participate you did show up not only in the shadows but in the light’’ the Marshall threw a data slate on the table ‘’Right there it says you had around one hundred terminator units rivaling the likes of the Dark Angels, where are those troops now?’’ Questioned The Marshall.
The chapter master had no obligation to answer, but to get to the war quicker he complied.
‘’They are at our home world, they do not leave the planet unless something regarding the whereabouts of our Gene-father are involved, and in those instances we had false information leading us to believe that we could find something, we did not, and in this case they cannot be summoned’’ Said the chapter master.
The black Templars looked confused, how could someone not bring their entire fury upon the God Emperors enemies?
‘’You deny us your full help, and now you reveal to me you sent Astartes elsewhere? How can you expect us to foll-‘’ the Marshall was cut off by Kaelan .
‘’Fifty Astartes is all you get, if you cannot see that is all you need, then we have less hope of winning this war’’ Said the chapter master
The air was tense, both were now at the holo table hunched over in front of each other, the chapter master now had his hands on the table and Marshall was holding the hilt of his sword and anything could occur between these two, the men were ready on both sides if fighting was needed to break this silence.
Then, a heavy rhythmic thud gas-mask filters and rebreathers broke the silence.
‘’Begging your Pardon, My lords. You argue over the ‘how’ but the ‘when’ has already passed you by. The green skins have stopped infighting and are now chanting less and less names and soon they will chant a single name, if that name becomes a crown, then my men will be reduced to a footnote in a lost campaign. I have four hundred thousand men ready to die as a distraction if you need to. Just use us or watch us be wasted for nothing’’ Said Colonel 186.
The space marines were stunned someone talked between these two men, but the death Korps of Krieg did always find life to be overrated.
‘’Thank you, Colonel and please even if you are a resource you’re a precious one at least at this moment try not to die too fast, we still have need of your men’’ Said Kaelan while then turning to the commissar ‘’In terms of ammunition we do not have much, but we do have medical supplies in case of these situations I will have my men distribute it’’ Explained the Chapter Master.
The commissar simply nodded in confirmation, but was truly grateful, any help would be welcomed.
The Marshall had not taken his eyes off the chapter master, he was still waiting for another plan where they would take the offensive and not hide behind mortal men.
‘’Marshall we do not have the time anymore for this conflict between us so I will take my leave I will raid the enemy camp with my men, and you and your men will be in charge of the frontal assault, you can wait or attack from the start its up to you’’ Said Kaelan.
‘’We attack as soon as this meeting is over’’ said Alphonse
The chapter master turned to his men and nodded almost as if signaling them to start moving.
‘’We will now get in position and I will leave a few men and lieutenant Rylan in your area to assist if need be’’ Said Kaelan.
The black Templars said nothing and simply left to start discussing their plan and Rylan followed them, and began to introduce himself to his cousins hoping to calm the mood down from the altercation they almost had.
The Ravenwatch now gathered around their chapter master to also discuss plans for battle.
‘’What now brother?’’ Asked the chaplain Thorne.
Before the chapter master could answer he turned to Aelios and tried to thank him for earlier but was cut off.
‘’Don’t say anything, I saved you just because you are the chapter master of OUR chapter, our battles or struggles are no one else’s concern’’ Said Aelios.
Kaelan breathed and looked at his brothers before speaking with a neutral tone.
‘’In that case let us continue, I know some of you don’t trust me fully, but that is not something that will hinder us, we are sons of the Raven if any doubts are present make them known’’ Said Kaelan.

‘’It is concerning that others feel the chill of your arrival, originally I believed only we could feel it’’ Said Chaplain Thorne.
‘’If it is connected to our Gene seed flaw, you would be wise to keep an apothecary with you at all times would it not chapter master?’’ suggested Vesper.
‘’I do not feel it’s a psyker ability either brother, but I do sense it causes great harm to you soul when you use it’'’ Said the Librarian Corvin.
‘’If you have been tainted, you should go back to our home world and let someone else lead this mission, or it could be this is how you always were, I mean you were created different than us after all’’ Said Aelios.
‘’That’s is enough Captain, it does not matter who or how one becomes a chapter master, once they earn that position respect is owed and you will oblige by our ways’’ Said Thorne.
‘’It is fine brother, it is true that when becoming a sons of corax I did so out necessity I was but a child and about to die, until our previous chapter master found me and by some miracle we found the old laboratory where our gene father had created previous Astartes before the primaris arrive he had made better warriors there, and I was the last one to be created’’ he looked one by one at his brothers eyes before continuing ‘’I do not know why I have this curse nor why these things occur, all I can say is that for now the mission is the same, eliminate the enemies of the God Emperor and wait for our gene-fathers return’’ Said Kaelan.
All of the Ravenwatch present looked at each other thinking carefully of what to say before speaking.
‘’I have checked your vitals and brainwaves every day, as a professional at my craft I trust you brother’’ said Chaplain Thorne before saluting.
‘’I have my doubts about the origin of your powers chapter master, but I trust you will lead this chapter to glory’’ Said Captain Vesper before saluting.
‘’I still do not know how your power works but it does concern me that your soul is wounded when you do, I recommend meditating more or have an apothecary nearby, however I will follow you as long as you remain sane’’ said Librarian Corvin before saluting the chapter master.
‘’I do not trust something that was made different than us, the primaris are only acceptable since they carry a custodian and a Primarch’s seal’’ Said Aelios while saluting and continued ‘’ I will follow your orders to the letter chapter master, but should you falter I will be there to correct you’’ Finished Aelios.
The Ravenwatch saluted back and then signaled his brother to follow him to the table to discuss the battle in the upcoming minutes.
‘’The black templars will handle the front and they have Rylan’s squad as back-up’’ said the chapter master.
As Kaelan pointed to the front of the hive city then pointed to the middle of the ork encampment.
‘’Here, there is now only two ork contenders left, their names are Grot skullcrush and Ruk’ Bloodhowl, they are the former bodyguards of the ork war boss I killed, now they are next in line they are the biggest and strongest orks left’’ The chapter master said.
Kaelan looked up and looked at his brothers who knew they all wanted the mission to eradicate the biggest threat the quickest and end this war.
‘’ I trust Aelios and Vesper to kill these two strong orks’’ said the chapter master.
As he looked at both of them they both nodded in agreement and began communicating privately already between their helmets to discuss the plan while also still paying attention.
‘’Next, I want Corvin and Thorne to take care of the next target, that’s is perfect for your abilities’’ Said Kaelan.
The chapter master then pointed to the left upper hand corner of the encampment.
‘’Here is our next target of interest, is the edge of the camp, almost in an open field, it’s the camp of the Stormboyz of this army, they experiment a lot so they usually stay far away so they don’t injure other orks’’ Said the chapter master ‘’We will kill their leaders so they don’t try to regroup or launch any surprises on anyone, my scouts tell me their names are Zagrok the Skyflamer who specializes in explosions and fire attacks and Grotmuk the Warpzoid who has the strange power to warp the Waaggh! Energy to his whim’’ Said Kaelan.
He then pointed back to the front gate for the final order of the plan to take place.
‘’Here, the black templars will attack with Rylan as back-up, they should be able to take on the fast freeks the orks on bikes only fight on open fields, so the entrance of the city will be their main target hopefully the black templars can kill them or at least hang on until we can regroup with them, then Vesper and Aelios will crush the candidates of war boss and Corvin and Thorne will handle any unexpected attacks from their Stormboyz, with all this finished there should be no more candidates, and thus the Orks will split up, some will escape, others will stay, either way our mission will be over once this is completed, and we will go back to our home world to continue our vigil, any doubts?’’ asked Kaelan.
None of the Ravens said anything simply nodded and just before they all left captain Aelios asked a question.
‘’Where will you be? I noticed you did not mention your position, don’t tell me you are going to be jumping from battlefield to battlefield again? You are not a Primarch you know’’ Said Aelios.
‘’I will go where the battle needs me most, where the most lives can be saved, but also where more of our enemies I can snuff the life out of, that’s where I’ll be captain’’ Said Kaelan.
Then as out of nowhere almost as they were melting, all the Ravenwatch dipped into different shadows and disappeared out of the room without making a sound.

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The emperors sons-[ONGOING] Book 2 Ravenwatch Updated (Chapter 2 live)

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