The Horus Heresy is finished. The Imperium of Man stands triumphant over the shattered hordes of Chaos. But the Emperor of Man, his body destroyed by his son, finds his soul escaping. He awakes in a new world.
Pain. Everything was pain. My body was in agony, from my extremities to my very heart. My soul was aflame as well. What was over was over. For eight years, the Horus Heresy has destroyed my Imperium. Worlds had burned as the archtraitor himself had pillaged them as an afterthought of his passing. Or perhaps, it was not so much as an afterthought as a warning: “Soon, Terra will be likewise.” Now there was peace. Why did I not feel it? I had killed my most favored son. He had nearly killed me. Soon, I suspected, I would be dead. I would die, because every organ in my body had been shattered by Horus. I was barely able to strike him down when the final moment came. Heh, it was oddly fitting a death for the Emperor of Mankind, was it not?
Then there was light. From behind my eyelids I could see and feel the warmest light that I had experienced. Impossibly, the physical pain seemed to fade. Was I in heaven? Why would I be there? I had done more in my life deserving of hell than any human being. I did not even believe in either. There was the warp, certainly. But the dead were barely conscious of their continued existence there. Was I still alive? I opened my eyes.
“Xenos!” I cried as I saw the face staring down at me.
The face blinked. It was long, equine. It was pastel colored in a way that defied the laws of reality. The sheer existence of such bright color almost disgusted me of the world. Colors that bright were colors of the warp indeed! This was no daemon, certainly for I could sense the foul evil stench of those, but it was certainly chaos affiliated. The abhorrent creature was poking my golden plated armor with its hoof, tracing the fine inscription. It had a horn protruding from its head, like the Unicorni of old mythology, and eyes far too large for its head.
“Away, thou foul aberrant!” I roared, lashing out with my arm.
The Xenos hadn’t the time to flinch when my fist connected with its skull. There was a sound of rending flesh as the force of the impact removed the Xenos’ head from its shoulders. The removed cranium spun away comically sporadically spurting blood, bone fragments and brain matter flying from where I had crushed it. The body collapsed as gravity embraced it. The enemies of man would not be victorious this day, for I was the Emperor! I was dimly aware of screaming. The blow was pathetically weak on my part.
I stood, strangely free of the agony that had racked me but a few seconds earlier. Coming to my full height, I looked down towards the source of the screaming. Several terrified Xenos stared up at me with their disgustingly large eyes, rooted to the spot by terror. Almost all were garishly coloured. I dwarfed them by a great magnitude. They barely came to my knees. Several were weeping. These were strange, evidently spineless creatures. Creatures such as these were part of the reason for the Great Crusade. Creatures as pathetic as these ones did not deserve to live. They scattered. Watching them, I noted that they were running into a small village.
The village eerily reminded me of villages from the Medieval period, roughly twenty-eight millennia before I founded the Imperium of Man. It was hard to remember. However, this village deferred from the grey, depressed towns of medieval Europea. It was just as disgustingly colourful as its inhabitants, lacking all of the simple grandeur of Imperial architecture. Six of the creatures stood in my path.
My eyebrow quirked up at the sight of these creatures. Fear radiated from them, yet they stood their ground, stony faced. Naturally, fear was to be expected. One simply cannot see the Emperor of Mankind and not feel awe. This was not pride speaking. It was truth. Few men could bear to look upon me. They claimed behind my back that my armor was “too shiny”, and I “too glorious.” It became, at one point, disturbingly close to worship, which I abhorred and still do. The Cult of the Lectitio Divinitatus was something that I had been trying to exorcise for some time. I was not to be worshiped. Nothing was to be worshiped. I was no god.
I noticed that these creatures wore pendants. I make a correction. Five wore pendants, one wore a…what were they called. I hadn’t seen one of those in millennia. Ah, yes! It was called a tiara. Disgusting implements of inbred nobility, it was an attempt to assert command among those who were unworthy of it. The creature that wore the tiara had both horn and wings. I finally noticed that these creatures had marks upon their haunches. Ritual tattoos? If that was the case, these abominations had far more to worry about than before. Ritualism was and is disgusting.
“I am Princess Twilight Sparkle of Equestria. Surrender, and we won’t use the Elements on you,” Her voice quivered, and I could sense that she was unused to the usage of threatening. But, I could sense some power…radiating from her. It was well spring of psyker energy potent as a Librarian’s.
I do not know why, even now, but I spoke, “The Emperor of Mankind does not surrender. Thou shalt kneel to us, and die painlessly. If thou refuseth to bend the knee, we will destroy thou and purge thy kind from the face of this world in a torrent of fire and agony.”
I should not have given them the honor of hearing my voice. Only my sons and Malchador had ever truly heard me speak. Certainly, many soldiers had heard my commands upon the field of battle, but I had never spoken to them specifically. I know not why I spoke to these foul creatures. All xenos had to die. They were eternally the enemies of man, from the barbarian Orks to the arrogant Eldar. These were no different.
“Girls, formation!” The so called Princess ordered.
Warp energy began to bleed off of them. It was not like Horus’ though. The opposite, in fact. It was almost…pure. This was thought that rattled me to my core. I had seen many things come from xenos, yet they had one thing in common. Their magiks always stank as putrefying flesh of rotting impurity. Yet, this signature almost felt human. This was an abhorrent consideration. I had spent two centuries killing creatures as these, yet these were a dimension apart.
Disgusting.
A rainbow beam of energy lashed out from the creatures, whose eyes were now glowing. The beam struck me in the chest, having no effect. My body simply absorbed it, empowering me. I saw their leader’s eyes widen.
“Twilight, why isn’t it working?” Cried a white colored Unicorni. She had a highborn accent. How strange.
“He’s…too pure? Wait, what? How could he be to pure this is impossible. Nothing that kills could be good enough to absorb the elements. No! No! No! No! No!” She kept repeating the words, twitching slightly.
It occurred to me how odd it was that I could understand them. Why did they speak low gothic? It was nigh impossible that they could have the same language as humanity. It was utterly inconceivable. I was now utterly certain that the chaos “gods” were having a laugh at my expense, as they had been during the Horus Heresy.
“ I have to go get Celestia!” she cried, rushing towards a building in the shape of a tree.
I shrugged and continued, drawing my sword, Worldslayer. It was the brother weapon to Horus’s mace, Worldbreaker. There was a certain comfort as I looked upon the Aquila upon the pommel, and the high gothic inscription upon the blade. I almost smiled as I read the words.
The plan was laid out. First, I would continue purging the foul inhabitants of this village. Then, I would continue and hunt down the planetary leader. Third, I would kill the leader. Fourth, having decapitated the chain of command, both figuratively and literally, I would psychically come in contact with the Imperial fleet. The Imperial fleet contacted, I would await their arrival. One they arrived, I would have the planet bombarded and then invaded. Thus would a new colony become man’s.
I looked around me at the scene of absolute violence. Corpses were scattered about with indiscriminate damage inflicted upon them. Blood seeped into the ground under my gold plated adamantium boots. Entrails and parts of entrails clung to the crannies of my armor. The ichor of the victims of my blade simply dissipated in the fiery energy field of my sword. By my memory, I had already killed fifty. Roughly two minutes had passed since my first arrival.
Something moaned next to my boot.
One of the disgusting horse Xenos was trying to drag itself from me. Both its hind legs had been amputated. I took a moment to observe the specimen. It was mint green, with the mark of a lyre upon its hindquarters. I sensed a strong burst of fear from the Xenos as it realized that I was staring at it.
“P-please,” it wheezed pathetically.
I brought my boot up, and brought it down again. The xenos squealed as it was crushed under my boot. Intestines were propelled explosively from the creatures stomach from the force of impact. A second creature charged me. Amusingly, it was holding a knife. I let the knife impact, just to show the Xenos the inadequacy of its own assault. Then, with a backhanded strike of Worldslayer, I bisected the abomination. One half tumbled into a wall, face contorted into a grimace. It was still alive, but not for long. The second half tumbled to the ground.
I heard a distant voice cry out in insurmountable mental turmoil.
“Carrot!” It screamed.
No matter. I had become acquainted with screams millennia ago. They brought no pleasure, but they informed me of the enemy’s disposition and location. A winged xenos-a pegasi perhaps?-charged me. It met with my fist, which closed around its head. My hands wrapped around the head with ease, comically large though it was. A quick squeeze, and there was no head, simply bloody matter upon my hand. The action was completed with barely conscious thought.
I looked back to my first victim, and noticed that another of the Unicorni was nuzzling him.
“Brother?” it asked, shocked, “Flim?”
I exerted my will. From my hand came a flash of angry light. The live Unicorni went flying striking a wall. A sharp crack issued as its neck snapped. I sensed a burst of the foul Xenos magik coming from within the tree house ahead of me. The winged Unicorni was a powerful psyker indeed. No match myself, naturally. I could sense something, though. A rippling in the warp. There was a sudden pink blur, and one of those Xenos was somehow upon my head.
“Cake attack!” it screamed in a high pitched voice, attempting to smear my eyes with...sweets.
I reached up and wrapped a fist around the creature, throwing it violently into the wall of the tree house. The creature went straight through the wall of the building, sending pieces of paper flying. A book landed at my feet. It was filled with vile runes and instructions for spells. The tree began to collapse from the force of impact. It toppled to the side with a loud thud. This vile placed had to be purged with fire. The pink one got up again. Impossible! This could only be spawn of the warp, as no mortal creature could survive the impact.
“Foul spawn of the Warp!” I roared, “Thine doom has come at our hand!”
There was nothing I hated so much as the foul perversions of the Warp. The ones who had corrupted my sons, and their legions. They were ultimately the ones responsible for the war, the ones who had corrupted the very soul of the Imperium. They were ultimately responsible for all of mankind’s woes, and were the ones who stood in the way of the ultimate purity of our race. They encouraged foul religion and human sacrifices, abhorrent acts that had to be punished with the utmost vindictive vengeance. None would live.
The creature was fast, indistinct, hazy. What was strange despite all evidence to the contrary, was that the creature did not feel like a daemon. It acted like one, it was insane like one, but it did not radiate malice like one. A daemon without malice was no daemon. This was odd to me. I had known the warp all my life. This creature utterly defied all knowledge and understanding. This creature was no daemon despite my prior thoughts.
I sensed a powerful presence behind, and barely dodged a golden beam of light. The presence of this creature radiated in the warp. Its magnitude almost matched Horus, although it lacked the subtle perversion that Horus’s had had.
“Princess Celestia!” I heard the purple Xenos--‘Twilight Sparkle’-- speak, “Thank Faust!”
A white creature, bedecked in gold descended from a golden chariot in the heavens. The creature had both horns and wings. It glared at me with obvious hatred. It looked around at the carnage surrounding us, horror registering in its mind. Still it kept a steely gaze.
In the mean time, the purple Xenos was uttering a continual torrent of speech towards the white creature. Among the words uttered were “immune to the elements”. This statement registered shock in the white being before me. Its eyes narrowed further.
“Why have you done this?” It asked. The voice sounded female.
I did not speak. This creature was an enemy of man. It required no answer. I was the Emperor, I answered to no one. When it became apparent that I was not going to speak, the creature ignited its horn and fired at me. The blast rebounded off of my chest armor, barely scoring it. I sidestepped the next blast, using my own psycic powers to return fire. My first blast hurled her through a wall. She emerged, badly bloodied, hobbling. Fifty plate armored Xenos advanced at me, spears ready.
The first stroke of my sword killed three, sending ichor spurting wildly. Using cross momentum, I crushed the skull of another. Continuing, I caught a thrusting spear. I spun it over my head and killed a further five with it, breaking every bone in their bodies and destroying spear. In my hand, it looked like a dagger. A group of winged Xenos charged me. I purged them with my blade, sending a row of bisected corpses to the ground in a rain of body parts and organs. Several of my enemies vomited openly, demonstrating their weakness. I kicked another one, and it exploded in a welter of gore. A third was trampled into the dirt, becoming one with the ground. When all was done, I was surrounded by corpses, and my armor was covered in gore. Only the top portions were unstained.
I spun, catching the white creature by surprise. Its eyes widened as I brought my blade up for the killing stroke…I hesitated. Why? The creature was to die. By my own decree, all Xenos were to be purged. I sensed something. I was unmoved by the terror that gripped the Xenos, the shock at my lethal prowess. No. Something unholy tainted this place. I turned and looked to the horizon. A red skinned creature stood upon the hill, winged and horned. A bloodthirster.
The term “Daemon” was a mere technicality, a term owing more to religion than to reality. But while I had expunged religion from every corner of my Imperium, I could never truly remove terms such as “angel” or “daemon”. Even while I remove every last vestige of superstition from human society, they continued to insist on referring to the Astartes as “angels of death”. Calling the neverborn “daemons” only played into it.
But “daemon” was only a word, a connotation. It had no real religious significance. It was just a name. If anything, it was a name far more accurate than “neverborn”, for the denizens of the warp were constantly being born. Since my son, Horus, fell to their malign grip, they had become increasingly common. There was a twinge of sadness to this. Horus was my favourite son, and he had been too weak.
There are many kinds of daemon. Tzeentch has the Lords of Change, perfidious creatures that rely on trickery to win, much like their master. Nurgle’s greatest children are known as Great Unclean Ones, and they spread filth and vermin wherever they go. Slaanesh (the bitch), posses the Keepers of Secrets, hermaphroditic manifestations of pure perversion. They attest to how decadent the Eldar truly were. This particular daemon was a Bloodthirster, a favoured son of Khorne, the blood god. They were perhaps the most dangerous of all daemons, feeding and gaining strength from blood.
I strode towards the howling daemon, blade Worldslayer clenched firmly in my fist. I could feel the warp turbulence pouring off of the daemon. The Xenos obviously felt it too, because they immediately fell into an orgy of violence and bloodshed. Weak minded creatures have a tendency to fall with greater ease to chaos. This was partially why I made a point of exterminating primitive Xenos such as these ones.
“Anathema,” the daemon growled the pet name that his masters kept for me, “Have you come to face your death?”
I almost smiled at the sheer ridiculousness of the daemon’s arrogance. My death? I had singlehandedly fought the Four Gods of Chaos for millennia. In the warp, I might add. It is worth noting that the Chaos Gods are not, in fact, gods. Rather, they are simply the most powerful of their kind. It is also worth noting that they manifest in a physical sense in the warp, and that they are vulnerable to human-like emotions. Including lust. Khorne still hates me even more than even Tzeentch after I caught him with Slaanesh during one of my psychic raids on his realm. It is worth noting that this was extremely disturbing, since Slaanesh is a hermaphrodite, and covered in tentacles. I believe a subsect of the Asiatics referred to this as “hentai”.
I will not elaborate regarding my feelings on that particular subject.
“No, bloody one, I have not,” I replied to the daemon’s query, "thou hast."
The daemon was a red-skinned monster of both claw and fang. It possessed brazen armor made of bronze. Clutched in its hand was a sword that wept blood. Its eyes glowed with a crimson fire, like its master’s. A chain of skulls hung around its neck, among other totemic fetishes. Great leathery wings spread about its back, giving it the look of a giant bat. Rage boiled from the creature.
Behind me, I heard screaming and the sound of blood squirting from opened arteries. The daemon seemed to be basking in the bloodshed its presence was creating. I knew that the violence was feeding it. The white Xenos was still resisting the madness with all her might, and she had backed a safe distance away from my blade. I could feel fear resonating from her. No matter. I would deal with her later.
Now, it came to a standoff, staring at each other, daring the other to move. The standoff lasted roughly half a second. The daemon struck first, its massive blade lashing out to cut me in half. I jumped back, ducked under another blow, and promptly hacked at the daemon’s arm. The blade, forged by my own hand, bit deep. The daemon screamed in agony as Worldslayer began to burn away layers of its unnatural skin. The blade was anathema to the warp born, just as I was. Blood poured from the open gash in the daemon’s arm.
I withdrew the blade, and sidestepped around a clumsily aimed backhand that nevertheless would have removed my head. These daemons were strong. One of them had broken Sanguinius’s back at the beginning of the Betrayal. He hadn’t fully recovered from it by the time Horus had reached Terra. He had pleaded with me to let him go, and against my better judgement, I did. Sanguinius died at Horus’s hand.
I struck my blade through the bloodthirster’s chest, black, foul blood sprayed from the wound. It smelled like rot mixed in with copper. That last blow had made it angry.
“I will flense you alive, Anathema!” It screamed, “I will eat your bones and drink your blood! Then my father will be pleased with me!”
The ground shook, and blood rained from the heavens. Bloodstorm. That was not good. The bloodthirster would imbibe itself on the blood. It would grow strong from it. Of course, it took time to imbibe blood. Time I spent decapitating the daemon with my sword. A primal psychic death scream echoed in my mind as the beast collapsed to its knees, black blood spraying wildly in the air, creating a small waterfall down the hill. The creature’s head continued screaming, even as it rolled away. Purple warpflame consumed the creature, and it sank into the earth, continuing to scream the whole way.
I heard the white, winged Xenos screaming as well. I could well imagine why. The death scream had exerted enough psychic pressure to kill many of the lesser Unicorni. Some of their heads had literally exploded from the violence of the primal howl. The town was completely awash with blood, every square inch was coated with it, and there was a variable stream of the crimson vitae. Brain matter flecked the streets, and organs lay scattered about like the twisted play of a demented child. It was hard to distinguish between the one’s I had killed, and those that had been killed in the blood rage.
Several of the survivors were weeping in complete and utter horror. I perceived that all of them were the ones who had fired the rainbow-colour lance of warp energy at me. They all seemed injured in some way, save for the pink abomination. The cyan one had a large gash in its wing. It seemed panicked as the wing refused to respond to it. The yellow one lacked a leg. It would likely only take a few minutes for it to bleed out. The white, highborn Unicorni, was missing its horn. The orange one was missing part of its face, and blood pooled around its unconscious form. The innards of the purple Xenos that possessed both horn and wing had been opened to the air. This unfortunate remained conscious and in agony.
The white Xenos, which had proven to be their leader, glared balefully at me. This glare failed her as I strode towards her and the other Xenos, blade in hand. Her eyes filled with fear, not for the first time that day. I raised my blade, and...
The killing blow was forthcoming, my sword prepared to cleave her in twain. Her terror was almost palpable. But it was a clean terror. It was not terror of death that went through her mind. It was fear for her subjects. She knew that if I were to kill her nothing would stop me from ending the lives of those that survived behind her. Normally, that would not have changed my mind, were it not for another realization. I realized that her mind was human. Not human like, mind you. Human, exactly the same. Why was a human mind trapped in an Equine body? I sheathed my sword.
The Xenos blinked. Fear was still radiating from her mind, but it was now mixed in with a quizzical curiosity. As I strode passed her towards the six survivors, she tried to block me, now fearing that her hopes were for naught. I pushed her aside with my mind. The purple one was now fixing me with a pain filled glare. I estimated that there were two more minutes of life for her. A mere two minutes. Although with what I was planning to do, she would have a whole life time ahead of her. However long that was.
I reached out with my mind, the warp flooding through me. Its first action was to try and destroy my mind, hatred, rage, lust, scheming, all flooded through me in equal measure. I fought back with my mind, and the power flowed through. I was briefly aware that I was flaring with golden light, and that the white Xenos was shouting in alarm. I saw the town flooding with light. I imagined the Xenos alive. I believed. Ironically, faith will allow a man to do anything. I had faith. The question that must always be posed is: faith in what?
Did it matter? The results were the same. Where there was once a desolate once village full of corpses, there was now a populated town, staring at me in fear. The only sign of the death that occurred was the charred ground where the Neverborn had ended its days, and the blood that still covered every surface. The six were healed and now looked around, puzzled. The blue one shouted in her mind that I needed my face bucked in. The purple one was more rationally minded. She asked herself almost immediately the cause of my sudden mercy. The white one with both wings and horn was relieved and amazed in equal measure. I was certain that she was gaping.
I was once again struck by the sheer humanity of it all. Xenos have minds that are completely different from mankind’s. That is why mankind is supreme. It is not just the body, it is the spirit. The Eldar, therefore, although almost human in appearance are not equal to man. They possess not the mind. These Equines possessed the mind. It was eerie. Never before had I seen such a thing.
Swallowing my thoughts, I turned to walk out of the village. I sensed the blue one charging towards me. I spun with such rapidity that the Xenos barely had time to flinch. One did not need to be a Psyker to see that she expected to die again. I merely held out my index finger in a warning gesture. The Xenos sank to the ground. I turned and continued my exodus.
How was I to return to the Imperium? It was necessary that I return to my people. The government was not fully established when Horus had rebelled, and it was fully susceptible to corruption and religious infiltration. It was imperative that I returned. Without me, Mankind would only last another ten thousand years. That was unacceptable.
However, the fact of the matter was, I was in another world. Even the warp felt slightly different here. Cleaner, even. Perhaps it wasn’t the warp that was different here, but merely the way it expressed itself. That was a thought worth investigating. Perhaps if I could find a way to enter the warp-
“Why?” The White Xenos ruler asked.
I paused.
“Why show mercy?”
“We are more alike than you think, Xenos.”
She paused, this time.
Then she said something that took me by surprise, “Have you a place to stay?”
