I had it all.

A beautiful girlfriend, a great and peaceful life, friends. All I had to worry about were dumb tests and even dumber things like winning a football match.

Oh, if only I had known what would happen, if only I had seen the signs. But I didn't.

Utterly oblivious, I went to the weekly board game meeting hosted by Mark, one of my best friends. He had been very insistent I come and had stroked my ego by saying such things like 'it is always more fun with you there' or 'we'll only play 40k tonight.' Mark sometimes wanted to play some other boring games, so me and my girlfriend mostly came when they were playing warhammer to Mark's endless annoyance.

My girlfriend loved board games. In fact she had been part of the weekly meetings before me.

When we arrived at his house, it was eerily empty. His parent's didn't greet us and none of the group seemed to be there except him.

"Hey mark! Thanks for inviting us!" I smiled with that easy charm of mine that had given me many friends and a girlfriend. We both shacked hands and went for a 'bro hug'.

"Nah, thank you two for coming." he said. He looked nervous, fidgety.

"So…where's everyone?" said Sasha, my girlfriend.

Mark gave her a watery smile. "They are on their way, you know how it is, haha, people say 20 minutes and it turns into an hour haha." He clapped his hands. "How about I bring you some drinks while we wait?"

"No, I'm good." I told him.

"Do you have sprite?" asked Sasha.

"Yes I do!" answered Mark. He then run off to get her beverage.

"Why the fuck's he acting all weird?" I whispered to her, jokingly, laughing.

She slapped me playfully on the chest. "Oh, come on Alex. Don't be like that. Poor guy's had a tough childhood…I feel bad for him."

Eventually, Mark returned with her drink but he also brought one for me and himself.

Sasha thanked him and drunk her beverage with greedy gulps. Mark also sipped at his. I didn't touch mine: I did tell him I wasn't thirsty.

"Come on, Alex. The, um, sprite, uh, bubbles are gonna go away. I thought we should all drink as friends, since I have an important thing to tell you both."

My girlfriend elbowed me in the side as a signal to stop being an ass.

I sighed, and, making the worst mistake of my life, took a few sips.

When Mark saw I wasn't drinking more, he became even more nervous, practically sweating. "Whatever you don't drink we'll throw on the trash. Come on don't waste the drink. There are, uh, children in Africa, you know, that don't have sprite."

I frowned. Now he was being an asshole and a creep. "I don't care. If you are so hot and bothered about waste, then drink this shit yourself."

"Comesh onss Afhex. Be- befefe gud and nishe to Marp." said Sasha in wobbly and sleepy voice.

At that moment it clicked. The bastard had drugged us.

Fight or flight kicked in and my mind went into overdrive. But despite my mind racing lightning fast, I only had time to complete too thoughts in that brief moment were me and Mark were paralyzed: 1-I had to protect Sasha 2-The drug would kick on me, so I had to go in now.

Then that precious moment broke. Mark drew a silenced gun at the same time I leapt at him.

Unfortunately, things aren't like Hollywood, and the gun fired before I could get on top of him.

The pain was immediate, like getting kicked by a horse and stabbed by a burning hot poker, right in the stomach. However, adrenaline and rage allowed me to continue onwards.

Mark managed to get two more shots in, one on my chest and another close to the first one, but I did reach him and went straight for his gun.

However, Mark was a crafty and sly little shit and threw it far away from us. Looking back, I have long suspected he had some self defense lessons in preparation for this moment. The bastard knew I would be able to take control of the weapon, since I had more muscle than him, so he made the best decision and got rid of the weapon before I could use it against him.

Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

A furious struggle ensued. Even with the drug and wound making me somewhat sluggish, I was hardened from sports and my part time job cutting trees and mark was not. Every punch hit Mark like a brick, one of them even possibly breaking his nose. And yet, blood was pouring out of me like a red waterfall, my strength trickling out with it.

Mark was rabid; he bit and pried at my wounds with his hands.

I knew I couldn't last much longer so I tried to inflict as much permanent damage as I could, going for his eyes, gouging them. He tried to stop me, desperate like only a man in a life or death struggle can be, but I was determined, using every ounce of my strength, and I was on top of him, able to exert gravity. With the last of my strength, my fingers bit in, crunching his eyeballs like fleshy grapes.

He screamed and wailed and pushed me away harshly.

I impacted the floor and the breath flew out of me. I tried to get up…but I found I couldn't, my arms trembling with the effort.

So, I dragged myself. I had damaged his eyes. He could not see, maybe I could hide Sasha so he wouldn't find her and-

A hand grabbed me by the foot and dragged me back harshly. Then Mark flipped me onto my back so I was facing up at him.

It seemed that either with noise or his damaged eyes still being able to see a little, he had found me.

"You fucking piece of shit! Why couldn't you just drink the sprite and fucking die! You ruin everything for me! First you took her from me! Then you took my friends! And now you took my eyes! She was mine! I met her first! You are just some brainless football asshole! You think you can get away with kissing her in front of me, taunting me and then playing at being my friend?! Do you know how much I suffered and-"

"You…nff arghh…pathetik!" I said, trying to speak through the blood bubbling out of my mouth. "She'll…neffver…love-"

"SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP!" Mark started frantically kicking my body. His sanity finally frayed. "I curse you! I hope you go to hell where you belong! I hope your afterlife is the worst of the worst!" A thought crossed Mark's mind all of a sudden, like a lightbulb turning on. "You know what, you fucking piece of shit! Since you like playing Warhammer 40k so much and made me play that shitty game so much, I'll sacrifice your soul to the chaos gods, I will paint their symbols on your dead body, and I will pray your soul get sent into The Warp to suffer for all eternity! And don't you worry about Sasha, I'll teach her how to love a man not by their looks but by their personality! And…"

I couldn't hear the rest because I died.

Or at least my body died, because due to Mark's curse or for some inexplicable reason when I opened my eyes I was in some giant, complex lab with what looked like female Adeptus Custodes standing guard over the door.

Everything felt wrong: my body was too big, my hands gigantic; every movement was abnormal, with more strength and speed than I was used to; my vision and smell giving me so much feedback it was distracting; my mind was lightning fast, able to process all of this and more in the span of a second; but, most concerning of all, was the massive pair of blue-gold wings that came out of my back through holes in my shirt.

While I thought and got used to my body, everything, including the female Custodes, seemed to move in slow motion, almost completely paused.

After a few of those microseconds, the weight of my situation finally crashed on me and I despaired. I had failed to protect my girlfriend and was now in the Warhammer universe most likely. My girlfriend was at the mercy of that insane monster, while I was alive in one of the, if not the worst, universes in existence.

I clung to the hope that perhaps the Custodes being female would mean other changes as well and that perhaps things wouldn't be as bad in this reality.

"You are finally awake." said one of the Custodes, taller than the others, "I am Constantina Valdor, Captain-General of the Adeptus Custodes, and I have been tasked with bringing you to the Empress of Mankind." Her voice was devoid of inflection, like a robot or statue.

Even though emotions were raging inside me, like a violent storm, my inhuman physiology made it so my facial muscles didn't even twitch, utterly relaxed. A thousand responses flew through my mind, each with a myriad of calculated consequences. However I settled with a simple nod.

I stood up from the complex and intimidating surgery table I was slumbering on and followed the Custodes as they made their way through the palace. I noticed that I was much taller than even the Captain-General, which lead me to guess I was, in fact, a Primarch.

The Custodes were silent all the way, which while unnerving, suited me just fine. My mind raced, thinking of what I would do, how to play this.

It would be best to keep my reincarnated nature or knowledge secret. Who knew how they would react to the blasphemy that was taking over a Primarch's body. As for speaking of my knowledge, Tzeentch was able to see the past and the present, so he would hear the words I told anyone. The best bet was to keep it all a secret.

Eventually we reached the throne room…and I was surprised once more. Instead of the cold Emperor I had expected, what awaited me in the throne was a warm and majestic Empress. Her power armor was less bulky than her male counterpart, but still quite large and imposing.

The Empress of Mankind smiled when she saw me. It was the smile of a legendary hero who would never surrender, who would be victorious no matter what. It was the smile containing the love of a parent, of a best friend. It was a radiant smile, like the sun itself. My mind knew that it was fake, that the Empress was a ruthless monster that used people and her creations like tools and disposed of them when they stopped being of use. However my body had a mind of its own: it reacted to it with giddy happiness, like a child reunited with their long lost mother.

"Ah, it is good to see you alive and well, my child. After all the work I did to try and reverse the damage and corruption our enemies had wrought upon you, I worried you would not survive." Her smile intensified, almost blinding now. "But I'm glad you proved stronger." The Empress must have psychically communicated a command because four elegant servitors brought forth an enormous mirror.

What I saw in the reflection made my blood freeze. I looked like a god, yes, infinitely more attractive than my previous self in my other life, without a single flaw. However, I saw the telltale signs of Chaos. My hair was long and colored a seductive white-lilac, one of my eyes was red and seemed to rage with flames when the light hit it right, the other was radioactive green, and last and most evident, the blue wings which I'd be damned if they weren't indicative of Tzeentch. I looked like some Chaos Primarch. Why was I not dead?

"I can see your surprise, my child, and I am saddened that I could not revert the changes fully. However, you should not think less of yourself for looking different than you sisters. I am sure you will prove just as talented as the rest of them."

Did the Emperor-no, the Empress, know I wasn't her son? From what I knew about the lore, she could read minds. So had she read mine? Asking could spell certain doom. This was part of the reason I couldn't just spill the beans and tell her about the future of her plans. Besides with the 40k lore being so inconsistent, who knew if tzeentch could listen in.

"What happened to me?" I asked, horrified. I had to know if my soul was doomed to Chaos or what the hell had been done to me.

The Empress looked at me with sympathetic empathy. "You and your sisters were scattered across the galaxy when you were created due to the manipulations of one of our enemies. You ended stuck inside the Immaterium whilst these enemies tried to turn you into a champion to use against me. However, I interfered before they could complete their terrible work. Now you shall use their weapon against them. You shall join the rest of your sisters on their great work and unify humanity."

The Empress was being light on the details, but I felt like pressing her for more would not be a good idea. "So what exactly do you want me to do?" I asked.

"You should begin by meeting with your daughters, the second legion." The Empress was amused at my shock. "They have been eagerly awaiting your return and would like nothing more than to meet their Gene-Sire." The Empress then stroked her chin, a calculated human gesture. "Then once you have had time to get acquainted with them, you and your legion will join up with your sister Horus and the 63rd expeditionary fleet."

After another psychic signal from the Empress, 5 Custodes walked up to stand behind me in a semi circle. "This shall be your bodyguards, drawn from my own personal guard." she said, her smile magnanimous. "Now go, do not keep your children waiting."

Numb with shock, I thanked the Empress and made my way out.