63-25 was a world in which humans had been enslaved. We had tried to establish diplomatic contact, but they had killed the messenger we sent. Subsequently, we came in in full force, guns blazing.
The humans in the planet were nothing more than cattle for their alien overlords. They were wretched and malformed, packed into chambers like food products.
The aliens on the other hand were terrible to behold. They were bristling with warp glamours that made them beautiful and horrific at the same time. Their weapons were also made out of this solidified warp energy. Most held bladed weapons and a projectile shooter's akin to bolters that shot warp matter shards.
The drop pod had been a horrifying experience. Only my Primarch physiology had allowed me to maintain my cool outer composure in front of the Captains riding it with me.
The moment we arrived the enemy was upon us. They were few in number but strong individually.
"We don't have to do this!" I said even as I parried the blow of the first of them with my force halberd. "Surrender peacefully and things will go better for you!"
The creatures were silent, refusing to communicate.
I used my other hand to shoot warp lightning at the Khrave. The things were capable warp sorcerers too and this one was no exception. It projected a forcefield and the lightning slammed into it.
But this thing was a footsoldier and I was a Primarch. The lightning punched through the shield and cooked its arm all the way to the shoulder, turning it into black charr.
My Captains did their best to hold against the enemy, but they were evenly matched at best. Data streamed in through my helmet, casualties, objectives, critical information.
One of the captains, Lazaras, lost an arm, the warp blade cutting through her armor and flesh as if it was butter.
I healed that Captain and all the other ones that received injuries through the fight.
The Khrave realized what I was doing and began to focus me, but I stayed at range, firing my bolter. I also placed my Captains between me and them, as shields. This is why I had brought them instead of letting them command their own units, because I wanted the best bodyguards for my first deployment.
From time to time one of them would get past my guards and reach me, attempting a desperate strike. In those cases a strike of my halberd made short work of them.
However, the strength of them varied quite a bit. The younger ones were weaker than the old ones.
The old ones were a real threat and it often took my real bodyguards, the Adeptus Custodes, to deal with them. Despite the bad blood between us, they were professionals. Still, I had to combine my force with theirs to deal with some of the really ancient ones.
In the distance, there was a megastructure, a great spire. The enemy's forces and defenses grew in number the closer we got to it. Our group was making a beeline for it, growing in number as we met with other drop pods and added them to our contingent. Horus and her legion were doing the same on the opposite end of the city.
I was worried sick and wrestling with the fact that I had killed my first living being, however nefarious it might have been. Several humans and allies had also died in the crossfire: the creatures mind controlled the Imperial Guard and weaker Mechanicus forces and turned them against us. It was all taxing my conscience.
In sharp contrast to me, my legion was ecstatic. They basked in the glory of combat and killing the enemies of their Empress. I cringed whenever I heard one of them yell at the top of their lungs "FOR THE EMPRESS!" or some other patriotic nonsense.
The Mechanicus that had brain enhancements that allowed them to resist mind control were like autistic children and began running experiments in the middle of battle, cutting into the creatures with saws, lasers, and drills like they had been given a new toy. They had to be persuaded and punished so they kept fighting.
It was all a giant nightmare. War was a terrible thing and it seemed it was all I would be doing for a long, long time.
As we cut our way ever closer to the giant spire, I maintained my strategy of distance and healing. My life was the most important thing, and I had to protect it. If I died not only would I not be able to rescue my girlfriend, but, knowing Warhammer, my soul would probably get torn and eaten in the Warp or something equally horrific.
I expected someone, anyone, to sneer at me and brand me a coward, but I was surrounded by boot-lickers, fools, and brainwashed maniacs. They all praised my strategic thinking, my prudence, my being willing to expend my subordinates to protect myself.
"Such acumen, such unfathomable intellect," said a noble commander of my human forces, his voice laced with awe. "Truly, you are the Empress' son!"
"The Omnissiah's creation is perfect beyond perfection!" The Arch Magos said in its emotionless, robotic voice.
None of "my daughters" said anything, but they all looked at me with admiration and love. Their gazes also had pride as if their beliefs had been proven true and I was what they imagined.
…but I was just hiding behind them, using them as meat shields.
My Primarch aura made me act confidently as if it was all part of the plan, fooling them seamlessly.
By the time we made it to the spire and regrouped with Horus' legion, our group was a veritable tide of Space Marines with some Mechanicus and enhanced humans.
It looked like Horus' legion had incurred significantly less losses than ours. Horus', with her countless battles and previous experience, had obviously commanded her legion better than me. The Luna Wolves were proud as peacocks, believing themselves better than us.
The moment Horus saw me, she began making her way to me.
She clasped my hand in a warrior's salute and then embraced me in a hug, our power-armor's creaking.
"Brother!" Horus smiled that dazzling smile of hers, "It is good to have you by my side once more!" She clapped me on the back a few times, laughing. "Are you enjoying your first battle?"
I smiled back at her, but it was a small smile. I couldn't tell her I hated fighting, that I wanted nothing more than to be away from this nightmare. Instead I said, "I am just sad so many of our forces have died…I should have done better."
Horus' face took on an understanding, compassionate cast, "You torment yourself too much, brother. Listen to me-" Horus grabbed my face with both hands making me look her in the eyes "-I kept an eye on you and tracked your progress through the data stream. For your first battle and with so little experience, you did very well. As for our forces…"
Horus placed one arm on my shoulder and swept the other around, like that meme with Buzz light year and woody "They wanted to die." She read my face like a book, despite it being an almost perfect mask. She knew I didn't believe her last statement. "It's true!" she said, doubling down. "They died for a dream! For a vision our Mother had of humanity unified, free of Xenos predators, glorious and ascendant. I guarantee you almost all of them would have rather died for that dream than keep living in a hopeless world!"
Horus kept talking, becoming even more fervent and passionate with every word. She really believed in her words, in her mother's dream. And by God if she wasn't convincing. She really was supernaturally good at what she did, like all the politicians, televangelists, demagogues, and other charismatic figures had been somehow blended together into one person. In fact, had I not known how this dream of hers would end, how all of the sacrifices we were making now would be meaningless, she would have managed to persuade me right then and there.
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
"We can talk more about this later," I said to her, avoiding the issue for the moment, "We have bigger fish to fry right now."
Horus gave me that amused smile of hers, "Bigger fish to fry pfffft!" she began chuckling, "What a strange expression, brother. Does it come from the planet you crash landed on?"
I felt bad deceiving her again, but it had to be done, "Perhaps, my memory isn't the greatest." I was getting better at using half-truths. I could lie almost seamlessly now.
She looked at me with sympathy, then her characteristic grin returned, "Don't worry. We'll make many new and fantastic memories, you and I. Now let's move on and make these abominations pay for every human life they took."
Now as a singular group we began climbing up the spire, encountering heavy resistance in the way.
The spire was their main defense point, their palace, and as such it had the strongest of them waiting for us. They were several times stronger than the foot soldiers, which didn't bode well for us since a foo soldier was a match for a space marine.
The Khrave had also laid several traps for us and kill corridors, making us pay in blood for every step we advanced. Without my healing powers, then this would be a true massacre, but thankfully I was there working overtime to keep as many of them in one piece as possible. The gazes of admiration and heartfelt thanks I received in exchange made me feel somewhat uncomfortable.
While I healed the troops, Horus used her charisma to make them fight like hell, "Keep moving! For humanity! For the fallen! Kill every last one of them!"
Having heard her battle cry, everyone began howling and redoubling their efforts, even my own space marines.
The higher up we climbed, the stronger they got. Soon, many space marines began losing their minds from the psykic attacks of the Khrave, tuning on each other, committing suicide, or simply falling into a vegetative comma, their minds gone. The exception to this was my legion. They had a higher psykic resistance due to their genetic trait, but even they had their limits: some of them, overloaded with psykic energy, began exploding, taking whoever was around them, enemy or ally with them.
When we were close to the top, things got so bad, that Horus decided to leave behind the weakest behind and let only those with the highest mental resistance continue. Most of her legion was left behind, while only a few of mine had to be let go.
Getting to the top was a great ordeal and we sustained heavy casualties despite my healing. Having someone that idolizes you and loves you more than anything is something so traumatizing that I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy, but that day it happened more than once. I should have been tired, I should have given up, but my body wasn't built to tire or stop.
The top of the spire was a great throne room like chamber. It was made from dark metals that were unrecognizable to my mind from earth. They glistened with a faint red sheen.
The place was enormous. Thousands could have fit inside. A giant could have stood inside from how tall the roof was.
The eyes of a Primarch could see without difficulty in the dark or under most conditions, but right then at that moment, seeing the massive creature at the throne that was digging into a little girl's open skull with several tentacles and devouring her mind, I wish I couldn't.
That wasn't the worst of it. Stacked in a pile were its previous victims, hundreds of devoured humans of all ages. And, in a straight line, mindless, defeated humans that had been raised in isolation to be nothing more than mindless animals were arrayed in a line, waiting for their turn. The worst part is they didn't even react when we came in.
So far the creatures had been silent, judging us to be nothing more than food and one doesn't talk to food. But apparently, us having the insolence of breaking into its home, made the Khrave in the throne fly into a cold, hateful rage.
Its power was out of this world, a rival to me and Horus. Even with my ungodly psykic resistance, I could still feel the thing furiously trying to invade my mind. It wasn't able to damage me or hurt me, but it was there and it psykically transmitted images and words to me.
This thing was ancient beyond belief, a prince of its race, a living weapon that had outlived its creators, spawned from the deepest evil to inflict terror and death among the stars. It had seen suns burn out, galaxies rise. To it we were nothing, a young arrogant race--it had seen many like us before and it would see us die, it promised us.
I had always read that Primarchs and Space Marines were incapable of fear, but perhaps either my human soul or whatever Chaos did to me had changed that, since I felt a heavy dose of terror course along my body.
I was just some American college student! I didn't sign up for this shit! I liked warhammer, but never, never ever in my life had I ever wanted to risk my life fighting eldritch abominations or forces beyond my comprehension!
Still despite my regrets and fears, I knew that I had a better chance of survival if I stayed and fight than if I ran away.
Horus was hit much harder than me by the mental attack. She was gritting her teeth and biting her lip from the effort, blood dribbling down her throat.
Seeing that its attack was unsucceful the Khrave Prince ordered its Royal Guards and Khrave nobles to attack us.
The room turned into a furious battle that required every inch of my power and wits.
My healing strategy and biomancy attacks from afar had worked well so far, and if something isn't broken why fix it?
Horus gave out a deafening battle cry and jumped straight for the prince. Since this was before her appointment as Warmaster, instead of Worldbreaker, she was rocking a sizable powersword and a twinlinked bolter.
This of course drew a lot of aggro towards her.
I did my best to support her using my powers. I threw some biolightning from my left hand, hitting three of the Khrave coming after her. The electricity chained between them, compounding and frying them. With my right hand, I aimed at a group of five, slowing the flow of their blood and bodily fluids as well as causing rapid cancerous growths to sprout in their brains.
All the while I did this, I had to dodge a rain of warp bullets. These Khrave guards were no slouches after all.
The prince began teleporting around, kiting Horus. At the same time, it created a bunch of deadly-looking floating warp swords that circled around him in a protective formation. The swords spun around them at the speed of thought, all of them phantasmal anomalies that burned with the light of dying stars. Every time the prince appeared at a location, it would fire a number them at Horus.
Normally dodging all of those swords would be hard but possible for her, but the prince and some of the elite Khrave were using mind attacks on her, which took a lot of her force and attention to fight.
Whenever she got hit by one of them or another deadly attack, I used my biomancy to heal her.
The battle was vicious. All around me Space Marines, psykers, and Mechanicus forces fought with tooth and nail against the terrible Khrave elite forces, sustaining heavy casualties. The human cattle? Most of them had been butchered in the crossfire.
As I fought it all became a blur, firing spell after spell. I lost track of time, couldn't look at my visor to check. At a certain point I even ran out of bolter rounds in my halberd, the thing clicking with the sound of an empty magazine.
Thankfully, there was plenty of psykic energy saturating the place so that I could keep firing spells. Had there been no psykers, I would have ran out of immaterial energy to fuel my spells since my powers seemed to work like a black hole, consuming all the energy in the environment like a creature breathing oxygen and pumping out carbon dioxide.
Eventually, once I managed to get rid of a good chunk of the elite Khrave, I went on to help Horus with the prince.
Her power armor was in tatters, her body slick with blood, both red and black.
"Was…about…time…you…joined me!" she said as she dodged some swords.
"Yeah," I told her, "Let's get this bastard."
Throughout the long fight, the gift of Khorne had been steadily augmenting my strength and speed. Taking this into account, I decided to jump into melee combat with Horus. But I decided to buff myself first, increasing various physiological factors in my body to increase my combat prowess even more.
When the prince appeared again, I leapt at them, creating a crater on the ground I was just standing on.
The prince shot some warp swords and other warp sorcery at me, but I was going so fast they flew by me, missing me completely. He tried to bind me, creating the bindings right over my limbs, but I tore them with my strength.
When I finally reached melee range and saw his defensive sword matrix, I began to realize that perhaps engaging him in melee was a mistake.
However, I was already there, so I tried.
The prince attacked me with 20 swords at once, while firing spells at me. I was able to deflect many of them, but I still got hit by several. Fortunately, I had enhanced regeneration due to being a perpetual, so even without using psykic energy, I was steadily healing.
Horus attacked the Khrave from behind, pincering them.
The Prince, knowing it was in an unstable situation, decided to teleport again. However, Horus, being good at reading people, was able to predict, and she grabbed it by the throat in a powerful vice-like grip, getting injured by the sword matrix in the process.
Both the prince and Horus ended teleporting together. Horus then used the chance to ram her power sword through its chest.
The Prince, enraged, fired every sword circling its body at Horus, skewering her multiple times, and blasting her away.
At that time I didn't know yet how resilient Primarch's were, so I got worried and cried out, "No! Horus!" I then leaped towards her location while throwing healing psykic energy at her.
"I'm…fine…fuck, just a few scratches." she said, spitting some blood. She had using my vocabulary and mannerisms more and more, either subconsciously or to purposefully in order to get me to like her, and it was working.
After I confirmed she was okay, we both jumped back into the fray.
The melee that ensued was the stuff of legends. Outside of observers wouldn't have been able to grasp even 1% of the beautiful moves and strikes taking place. They'd be lucky if they could even see a blur.
Both Horus and me weaved and dodged, blocked and feinted the prince, frustrating him at every turn. Whenever either of us found a chance, a small gap, we struck, dealing a blow. Even an ancient cosmic horror like this one could feel its end coming, and for the first time in perhaps ages it felt fear.
"į̵̤̯͓̳̗͚͈̲̳̮̭̫̓̓̾̆̅͛͗́͌͗̎̈́̚͜m̶̡̢̛̗͈̭͎̭̜̪̱̻̺̭̐̔̈́͌͌̔͂̈͋͋̀̋͝p̷̨̢̛̠̦̪͙̭̔̋̌͌̓̕͝͝͝o̸͖̹̤̦̫̭̻͛̓̇̚͜ͅs̶̞̘̰̝̗̉͒̎̌̉ṡ̶̛̰͙̦̼͍͒̈́̉̌͑̀̾͘̚͝i̶̡̜̺̣̪̣̩̟̰̻̥̓͛̓̅̆͑͝ͅb̶̬̯̩̤͌͗͊̍̍͊̚͠l̸̲̬͒̑̌͐̃̈́è̸̻̫͕̫̩̲̞̮̦̤̺̝̼̔̇́̅̀̐" a mind as strong as the prince's couldn't keep its cognition to
itself and its fear and thoughts were broadcasted to us who where in close proximity.
For all the good my strength and speed were doing, I had reached my limit. Already, I could feel senseless rage threatening to overtake me. If I lost it here, I might put everyone at risk, might even kill my own allies who trusted in me, looked up to me. I backed off, instead once again supporting Horus from afar.
I now focused on dodging attacks and began healing and buffing Horus instead.
We had the creature against the ropes, on its last legs, and now with the increased strength and speed from my buffs, Horus was finally able to deal it the final blow, ramming her sword straight through its tentacled mouth and out the top of its head.
Horus had been sustaining mental attacks throughout all of this, the creature focusing on her since I was more resistant. She had been shown visions of the fall of humanity, nightmares of a personal nature, of The Empress dying, of her legion perishing. The thing had tried to exploit her worst fears and use them against her, and now that it was finally dead, Horus tore off its head and snarled, "Humanity will never fall! My legion will never die! Not while I live, not while I have anything to say about it, Xenos scum! Your time is over and ours is just beginning! I will hunt you to the ends of the galaxy! I will find each and every last one of you damned Xenos and eradicate you like the filth you are!"
I half expected her to rant for longer or to begin stomping on her enemy over and over, but that was that, she flicked the head that was still impaled on her sword away, like some piece of trash, and then came up to me.
"Well done, brother," she grinned, "We make a great team. There's really no one else I'd rather fight side by side more than you."
"It's all thanks to a great teacher," I replied, making her laugh.
"Well, lets finish this." she said, leaping back to help the rest of our forces.