My legion covered the streets of terra like a great tide, a hundred thousand plus female Astartes, all kneeling and saluting with their hand on their heart, armor shining in the sun.
Humans on the skyscrapers and buildings cried and cheered when they saw me, they threw flowers and petals which fell down like a celestial rain. Both men and women swooned and fainted when they caught sight of me. It was as if I was a mythical hero, a god. It was surreal.
My body reacted with love at the sight of so many of its children together, proud and in gleaming white and bronze armor. It was a sharp dissonance with my despair and negative thoughts.
I walked up to the First Captain of the legion, who was kneeling before me, not raising her head, as if unworthy of looking up at me. She was taller than average and had dark orange hair and blue eyes--she looked nothing like me. How could they be female and look nothing like me, I wondered. It wouldn't be until much later that I found that chaos had changed not only the appearance of the body I inhabited, but also the gender. My legion had all been created by the uncorrupted female geneseed.
The First Captain and every Space Marine without their helmet on were crying teers of joy. There was admiration in their eyes, love as well, but also… lust and shame? The last one they hid well, trying to remain professional, but I was a Primarch and I could see through them. How could they feel lust? Everything I had read before lead me to believe that Space Marines were devoid of sexual attraction…not to mention the sickening notion that I was as a father to them. I didn't know what to make of it.
"My Primarch." said the First Captain, her head still vowed "I present you with what remains of the legion after my poor and insufficient command and beg for immediate death as penance for my mistakes."
My smile froze. What the hell? Was everyone insane in this world?
The other captains, seeing the initiative of the First Captain, followed after her in offering their chains words and begging for death.
Hundreds of thousands eyes gazed at me. I felt exposed to the world, the only thing preventing me from having a mental breakdown was my body. I was just a normal guy, living my life, and now I was in charge of an army with people asking me to kill them.
As always, my advanced mind processed things much faster than normal and by the time I offered a hand to help the First Captain up, I had a speech prepared and an idea of how I would handle things.
The First Captain hesitated, as if she was unworthy of grabbing my godly hand, so I pulled her up. I then gave her a kindly smile and patted her shoulder.
I began to speak, and my body took over, making my voice that of a master orator, my body posture that of a king or hero. "All of you, please get up! I will not have our first meeting marked by death! I forgive you for your past mistakes! I am sure you tried to do your best! What matters is what we do in the future and not the past!"
They were already in tears and sobbing before, but now they also began shout and yelling their approval, their thanks. At one point one of them began chanting "The Benevolent" and like an infection it spread.
Soon everyone in the crowd took up the chant and it became deafening.
And that is how I got my first nickname, Alex "The Benevolent"
Time went by and I met with one after another of the members of my legion (despite the feelings of kinship that my body gave my brain, I wasn't ready to call them my daughters).
They all had the same reaction of intense love and worship. I was their sole focus, all they seemed to want was my approval. It was…sad…more so knowing that this was the Empress' fault. Like all other Adeptus Astartes, they had been made to feel intense loyalty and love for their respective Primarch.
Their number was unending and although my body was almost impossible to fatigue, I was getting bored. I debated just calling it quits and moving on, but then I remember how much their mood seemed to be influenced by me. It would be a big impact on them to not meet them.
---
After countless hours had passed and we were finally done, the legion and I marched down to the port were all transports were waiting for us. I and the other high ranking officials were among the first wave of departures.
The people inside the Thunderhawk with me were talking to me, catching me up to speed on important details, such as how long it'd take to reach Horus and her expeditionary fleet, or the fights and xenos the second legion had encountered, etc. I listened to them with one ear while I looked at the view on the screen that acted as a window. I also found out about the whole First Captain situation and it turned out that while she had made a few small mistakes under pressure, overall she had done a good job, or at least that was the view of the other Captains and soldiers.
Terra didn't look like earth, the greens and blues, taken over by hivecities and pollution. Still, the view was breathtaking, even more so the closer to space we got.
The ship we disembarked on was a mix of military efficiency and rich opulence. The moment I stepped foot outside, a tide of humans, cyborgs, and red robed mechanicus members saluted me. This time I did not get to know them all, only acquainting myself with their leaders.
The humans and even some mechanicus guys were unable to resist with my Primarch aura.
I had personal conversations with the command staff, such as Lord Commander Pictard, an aristocratic man in charge of the human army; Misstress of Astropathy Min Fle Ving, a gaunt, blind woman; the Master of Vox; the High Senior of the Navis Novilitae; etc; trying to fill in the blanks of my knowledge as to what they did.
The Navigators had estimated the travel to take anywhere from 2-4 weeks, but nothing was certain with Warp travel and there was always the slight chance of getting stuck for thousands of years.
Knowing this, I began training myself and finding activities to pass the time and to take my mind away from thoughts of my girlfriend--I couldn't do anything for her at the moment and if I wanted to ever get back to her, first I'd have to survive. I began sparing with my finest Space Marines and testing different weapons, trying to find the right fit. However, it was ridiculously easy. It was like those times I used to fight my younger cousins, like an adult fighting a young child, perhaps even easier than that.
I had to put a lot of effort in regulating my speed and strength to match my opponents. There wasn't much I could learn from this except combat styles and weapon skills.
At one point, I decided to test the Custodes. I was curious to see how they would match against my strength. I had always read that they were killing machines, a group of them even able to kill a Primarch.
But my five bodyguards, silent statues, flat out refused to spar with me. I tried asking them nicely, laying on my charm thick, but I might as well have been speaking to a rock.
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"Look, you were tasked with protecting me were you not? Teaching me how to defend myself is the best way of protecting me." No reaction, except annoyance at my nth attempt to convince them.
The only thing I hadn't tried was to taunt them, because I felt it could make them develop a grudge against me. Yet, it was vitally important to understand their level of strength since the lore had contradictory accounts and I knew they would act as my executioners if ever did something that displeased the Empress.
I smiled with my most arrogant, mocking smile. "What, are the Empress' little lap puppies too scared of the big, bad Primarch? Can you even call yourself Custodes if you are so scared of losing? Can-"
The first blow came lightning fast, nothing like the Space Marines I fought before. It actually took a good amount of reflex to dodge.
The five of them engaged me, wearing their armor, raining a flurry of blows with their Guardian Spears. I was in my training armor and using the weapon I had come to favor over the last few days, a force halberd with a small bolter attached to it. The Mechanicus had gifted it to me as a sign of good faith, designed by my Arch Magos who was part of my command staff.
Despite them being slower than me, they had centuries or more of experience and it showed. They feinted or expertly parried my brute blows and punished me heavily for it.
I received injury after injury, my Primarch physiology working overtime to heal all the damage. My armor was shredded and in tatters by the time the first minute had gone by.
Even as I fought, my skill was rapidly increasing. I even managed to get in a few lucky strikes here and there, but the Custodes healed those and kept fighting.
As the fight dragged on and my injuries began to accumulate, I felt myself become stronger and stronger, my speed increasing as well. But anger also started taking a hold of me, a terrible and bestial rage.
I dropped my weapon and roared at the heavens. I battered away the next strike, my hand burning when it contacted with the power weapon, and grabbed one of the pathetic little yellow women and began chocking her throat, metal crushing like tinfoil.
They all began attacking me with everything they had, one of them cutting of my arm before I could finish the job and kill the Custodes.
The last thing I saw before I passed out was my legion coming to protect me like an angered beehive.
---
My body had healed back to normal after the fight, despite the gruesome injuries.
Needless to say, things turned out more poorly than I expected. There was a lot of bad blood now between my legion and Custodes. I had even received a condemnation from the Empress for my behavior.
The Custodes had been cold before, but now they were hostile now, even after I had tried to apologize to them.
During the rest of the travel time, I began to experiment with my powers, trying to see what had caused the increase in strength and rage. Through rigorous testing, I found that being engaged in combat with something resulted in a gradual increase of strength, but I had to perceive it as a threat. I then tried harming myself while not in combat and I found that after a certain point of injuries, my rage appeared once more. Thankfully I did my testing in an isolated and heavily reinforced room.
Through my testing I also found something else, another set of powers that allowed me to manipulate flesh and biology. I could shoot lightning form my hands, alter my flesh to steel, the applications seemed to be endless and I was only just brushing the surface. More research and testing would have to be done.
Additionally, once I started fighting psykers, I found that their energy seemed to be absorbed into me, reinforcing my powers for a short time. The only way they could seem to injure me was by throwing objects at me or altering the terrain.
But combat wasn't the only thing I learnt in the three weeks it took to reach Horus' fleet. I also gained a rudimentary (for a Primarch, excellent by human standards) understanding of logistics, fleet warfare, combat formations, and other strategic necessities.
I had also began to ingratiate myself with Archmagos Dominus Cytrine. The metallic monster was hard to get along with, their gender impossible to determine. All they seemed to care about was their research. But I needed them to be loyal to me so that I could begin research on interdimensional portals in secret, so I could get back home and save my girlfriend from Mark's twisted plans.
When we finally arrived, my stomach was eating itself with nerves.
We boarded into the reception area of Horus' flagship, The Vengeful Spirit, and I and my retinue were received by the 16th legion, the Luna Wolves.
The moment I laid eyes on Horus, despite all the knowledge I had of the atrocities she had committed, of her flaws, and of her ruthless manipulation of people, I felt myself instantly liking her, a smile to match hers forming on my lips.
She was…she was a demigoddess manifest, giant, well proportioned, and beautiful, wrapped in white-gold armour and pelts of fur. Her face was noble, her smile radiant.
She leaped down from her dais and throne with a boundless vitality, like a force of nature – a tornado, a tempest, an avalanche – trapped in humanoid form and distilled, the potential locked in. She was in front of me in the blink of an eye, giving me a strong, and warm hug, happy laughter booming out of her.
"Brother! It is good to finally meet you! After the disappointment of that barbarian Russ, I had low expectations for the rest of my siblings but never in my wildest dreams would I have imagined that the next to be found would be a brother and stunningly beautiful to boot!" she gave me another of her saccharine smiles and placed wrapped a hand on my shoulders, like a good friend, like a sister I had known since forever. "Oh, but we have so much to discuss! This will be most wonderful!"
Horus walked with me to the raised dais. Then once we were both there, she pointed at me, putting me in display for all to see. "My dear friends of the 63rd expedition, please come closer, gather round," she said, her voice like honey, like steel, like the most skilled orator. "Come on, I promise this isn't briefing time!"
Laughter rippled around the deck and the galleries and walkways above.
"I present to you my lovely brother, my kin!" Roars of approval and cheering from my legion, hers, and the humans exploded coming from everywhere. Horus made a sign for them to quiet down and eventually they did and she continued. "How I deserved…pardon me, how humanity deserved a being as fine as him, I don't know. Together, the 16th and 2nd legion shall be stronger! An unstoppable force! An immovable object! We shall unify the galaxy itself!"
The cheers were deafening, the very ground itself seemed to shake.
After that we all had a celebratory feast. The food was great, although some of the enjoyment was taken away by my body analyzing every ingredient, and they even had alcohol that could get an Astartes drunk (it would melt a regular human though).
Even after weeks had passed, I was still depressed and reeling from recent events. But Horus was such a fun girl to be around and I had drunk enough alcohol, that I forgot about my problems, about my girlfriend for a few moments and enjoyed my time.
---
Over the coming weeks as we explored worlds, Horus became my teacher. She taught me about politics, about strategy, about everything I needed to manage a fleet and army. We even sparred together. At first I couldn't even last a few seconds against her, but as time went on I got better and better.
Horus insisted on teaching me different forms of combat, but the one I dreaded the most was hand to hand combat. Horus was attractive beyond belief and whenever her sweaty, hot body pressed against me I struggled to remain faithful to my girlfriend…I lived in constant fear that she would detect my arousal, but thankfully she either never realized it or let the issue go.
Whenever I wasn't under Horus' tutelage or resolving some problem that had been brought to my attention by my Command Staff, I began to research how to cure Warp mutations. This knowledge could help me with my mutations or others'.
I, of course, needed test subjects for this, and I decided to ask the Navigators. After all, they were prone to suffer terrible mutations from exposure to the Warp, age, or power growth.
In the beginning they were very much against it, even with the prospect of a potential cure or treatment. They were arrogant and considered themselves precious and few in number. Thankfully Horus caught wind of this somehow and decided to help.
Horus was able to convince them in a few moments what I had not been able to in a week.
Despite my Primarch level intellect and the help of my most brilliant Apothecaries, progress was very slow. It would take years of continued research to see results.
Horus and I were inseparable during this time. It was rare that we were not spending time together. I honestly didn't know if she was just happy to have a sibling that she got along with, unlike Russ, or that I was a Primarch and she was putting extra effort to get me to like her because I was powerful and useful to her.
Whatever the case might be, we were having a drink late at night in her quarters when she finally asked me about my past, "So, Alex, brother of mine, I've told you about harsh Cthonia, about how I rose among the techno barbarian gangs. I told you about my past, but you haven't said a word about yours." We were both sitting on a giant sofa and Horus came closer to me, placing her hand on my shoulder and looking at me intensely. "The last thing I want is to pressure you, but you are my brother, and all this mystery is eating me up inside.
While Horus had told me some of her past, she hadn't told me everything. She hadn't told me about her being a scrawny Cthonian kid being abused by their stepfather, about her killing him.
Lying to her would be a bad, bad idea. I hadn't perfected my poker face to the level were I could deceive a Primarch, so she would probably know and it would all go downhill from there.
I decided that the best approach would be to tell her some of the truth, but not all.
"Well," I began. "There's not really a lot I can tell you. When I woke up, I was in the Empress' lab. You see, the Empress had saved me from some of her enemies and tried to reverse what they had done to me. And I'll only tell this to you, Horus, and no one else:" Horus smiled, as if touched that I would entrust her with such a secret. "But, not all of the changes were reversed either because The Empress couldn't or she wouldn't. I wish I could tell you more than that, like what was my homeplanet but I simply don't remember that stuff."
Horus grabbed my hand and held it in both of hers, looking at me meaningfully "Thank you for trusting me with this information, Alex. I promise, as your sister, that I will help you find who you were, with what you have forgotten. We'll find who you were if you want!"
"Thanks, sister. I appreciate you being so supportive and all you have been doing for me." I smiled and patted Horus' head.
However, after a few pats, Horus grabbed my hand firmly and took it away from her head, her expression serious. "Do not look down on me, brother. I understand that we have not known each other for that long, but I am not a child or your lesser. You should treat me with the same respect that I treat you. I will let this go this time, but reconsider your attitude in the future." Seeing that the mood had deteriorated, Horus smiled again and it was as if the sun had been eclipsed only to shine once more. "Now come, let us keep discussing what our approach will be for 63-25. Time is running out and we must decided upon a strategy if peace talks break down."