A/N: Two months ago, I put up a poll asking my Patreons what sidestory they would like to see out of eight different options. Last month, I put this up, to generally positive reception. This is a What-If tale following what if other Sensei wound up becoming the Firstborn instead of Pandora, with the rule that Pandora and that Sensei swap places in the sibling order. Otherwise, they will not align perfectly with the Character Creation options, and they may not be exactly like the Sensei you will come to actually meet, for the ones who are alive. For the dead ones... Well, consider this another knife through the chest.
The second Sidestory, Laughter In Slaughter, is already up on Patreon, so if you would like to read that a month early, you can find my Patreon here. Otherwise, enjoy the tale of a man with no home but the battlefield who wants nothing but a peaceful life.
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999.M41
Cadia, Kasr Pollux
The 13th Black Crusade
The ash in the air burned to breathe. Sweat beaded on his brow, even nestled within the command tent fifteen minutes march from the lines. Orbat fire and descending transports, friction burn in the atmosphere heating the whole planet up. To say nothing of the fires that were already burning all across Cadia's surface.
Hundreds of Kasrs were already burning. The vaunted city-fortresses of the Gateway, built with defense in mind above everything else, bled oceans for every inch they lost but they were falling anyways. With the quality of monster they were bringing for this fight, was it any wonder? Nightmare-things - oozing plague sludge, screeching flame birds, horned cavorting blade-demons that defied perception and surpassed reaction - assailed the Kasrs in waves, not even the dead truly dying. To say nothing of their demigods, their God-Machines, their witch-works and their dog-troops.
The Imperium of Man had the Imperial Guard, the Emperor's own endless-fecking well of guns and troops. But here and now, its bucket was full and more were stuck in traffic. Here and now, there were more slaves of Chaos than there were slaves of the Emperor.
You sighed in the command tent. In the distance, there were booms and roars from an artillery barrage, right on schedule just as you predicted. Soon the tide would turn and the cavalry come and the tally would be counted and the men would be grieved and the Emperor would be blessed by the suckers who survived. Then they would go onto the next war and the next until their lives were spent, and then there would be a new wave of young suckers readily gobbling up propaganda-gunk and looking to die for the fecking Emperor all over again.
Logan, you were so tired. Tired of this. Tired of War. Tired of your life's purpose, what you were best at. But unfortunately, you were born for battle and bred for war, unlike anyone else.
You scoffed as you looked at the bed wrap in the corner of your tent. It was well worn, of a pattern no longer used. The Regiment assumed it was something you picked up from your old unit, before you got transferred in and took charge. It wasn't wrong, per say, but it was also older than they knew. Damn thing was old,
really old. If you hadn't been mending it on your own with new material, it would have disintegrated by now. But it wasn't so much what it was as what it was used for.
…Nothing important, that is.
The flaps to the tent were thrown open and you looked up at the Lieutenant. Keran, that's the boy's name. A good boy, a bit too eager to use his authority as an officer to realise he has none, but he's got a good heart in him. His upper lip quivering, Lieutenant Kersan snapped a salute at you. You returned it casually, not bothering to stand.
"Kersan," you said with a half-growl, half-sigh, not bothering with the expectations of rank, "I told you, we don't salute on the battlefield."
"S-Sorry, Sergeant Major Medes--I-I mean, Sergeant Major--I mean, Sir!"
You resisted the urge to palm the boy's face. But you did fix him with a severe look. Not quite a glare, with no venom in your gaze, but certainly with some weight. "What is it, sir? Is something developing on the field?"
Lieutenant Kersan shook his head. "Nay, sir. It's… It's the Lord Castellan. He wants a word."
You frowned. You were but a Regimental Sergeant Major of a Imperial Guard Regiment of little renown. Long service history and notable roll of honours, but it is no Cadian Regiment. What would Ursarkar Creed want with an old bastard like you, who's just been too stubborn to die? "I'd figure the Lord Castellan is too busy defending the planet to worry about me, Lieutenant. We'll deal with it once the war ends."
"...This one's urgent, sir. He's, ah… He's sent runners."
This brought you to your feet. With one foot you kicked your lasgun into your hands, which you slung smartly onto your back by its sling. It hummed mildly, wondering if you were going to war already. You always were, you replied… Just that today might be in a different way. "How long until they arrive?"
The Lieutenant's brow furrowed in confusion. "Arrive, sir? They're…" Keran swallowed. He looked now more like a small boy than a grown, if young, man, cowed by the personalities warring around him. "She's outside."
You strode past him firmly, breaking past the flaps of your tent and into the hot acrid daylight and artillery smog. In the air you could see the massive fleets waging war for control over the orbitals, the masses of troops already being deployed towards the ground, sometimes with landers and sometimes at speed. You knew that the invasion had only just begun; the dying would begin soon. You could feel it.
The woman in front of you, however, was more proof of that than any thousand God-Machines could provide. Raven black hair, ornate golden power armour, a winged sword and real white wings to go with it, all thrumming with the soft golden glow of an otherworldly angel?
You kneeled before the Living Saint, as is expected of a man of your rank and apparent status. The other guardsmen of the Regiment were kneeling already, their heads bowed. "Your presence humbles me, Saint. What would you have me do?"
Unusually, Celestine knelt before as well, to the shock of the other men. She placed her sword flat on the ground, one hand on her knee and the other an open palm on the fields.
"I could have you do nothing. But I would ask you a favour, Sergeant Major Alistair Medes - no… First Star Lord Davian Lee Everett, of the Solar Expeditionary Force."
You tensed. That was a title you have not held since the end of the Iron War. That was the last time you will ever lead in that way. War is your birthright and your destiny, but it will not be at the sand tables. Then you stood, no longer offering the reverence that her position demanded, but did not earn.
"You will ask nothing. I will
not return."
"H-Heresy!" A Commissar of the Regiment cried out as he drew out a bolt pistol and primed its firing hammer. "Insubordination on the field of battle! The judgement is--"
He pulled the trigger, yet no shot emerged. The bolt round misfied and remained firmly within the firing chamber. You shifted your glance from its polished gunmetal body as the Guardsmen around the Commissar aimed their dirty, mussy lasguns at him. "Don't you
fucking point that thing at the Sergeant Major," those troopers, your lads, growled at him. They'd never spoken out against a Commissar like that before. It was enough to make you feel a hint of pride in them.
"Lower your arms, friends, please," Celestine pleaded. Her voice carried weight and the burden of peace lowered those weapons, still testily aimed at the ground - but now, no longer at each other. The Saint then turned back to you with a look of consternation on her face. "Then I will not ask, Lord Davian. But please, listen. Fate turns here on Cadia. The coming battle will be bloodier and more brutal than any the Imperium's faced in its history."
"Cadia will fall," you said outright, to the gasps of everyone present, even Celestine. "The
Will of Eternity will descend from the skies like a rageful comet, summoned by the spiteful ire of the Despoiler. Billions will die before they can escape. The Eye of Terror will split the Galaxy in twain and herald a new age of daemonic hordes. I know this. If you wish to tell me something, Saint, then tell me this: why should I care?"
Celestine looked at you, aghast. Your gaze back was deader than the graves you left behind you on countless battlefields. Then she spoke, and your brow furrowed with frustration. "Billions will die, Lord Davian - nay, trillions! The very fate of the future hangs in the balance! If the Imperium breaks upon Cadia, then all that awaits is the Second Age of Strife!"
"The Second Age of Strife has always been all that awaits us," you snarled back, harsher and more emotive than you've been for so, so very long. "The Imperium is a rotting carcass. It's going to die someday. Not in one lifetime, not in one hundred. But it's going to die and it's going to plunge the Galaxy back into the
muck that my father buried himself in with the childish notion that he can save
everyone if he just
breaks himself hard enough. The Age of Strife will come again, yes. And after that, we will start anew."
Haunted silence surrounded you. Guardsmen you've served alongside for years - a significant portion of their lives and the blink of an eye of yours - watch as you describe the cosmic futility of their lives with curt sharpness. You don't care. They are good men, and they should know the truth. That all this is meaningless. That all war ends with all men in the grave. Just that some enter later than others.
"...The Second Age of Strife will not herald a new dawn, Lord Davian. There will be no new hope. It will end in extinction - if we are fortunate. You will simply face the same crossroads that the God-Emperor faced in those days."
"Then so be it," you replied serenely. "I bore witness to one God's folly. I will not be accessory to another."
Celestine shook her head, furiously. "No, you misunderstand! By standing aside, you already are! The hope of the next cycle is about to be drowned in darkness, and I am trying to save it!"
"Then why not go yourself?"
"Because
I cannot fight the First Damned! Not as I am! Not as I will be! Not now, not ever!"
You frowned. You did not foresee the arrival of the Shadow Lord himself. This is too basic a battlefield for one like him. But more to the point, the hope of the next cycle that Celestine spoke of… There could only be one. But that's impossible. She was forgotten by almost everyone and severed from the few who remembered. "...Define hope."
She looked at you, with eyes that held the depths of your own despair. Your own failure as the Firstborn Son. "Who else, Lord Davian? I speak truly. It is up to you to believe."
You fell to one knee. Your men rushed to you, moving to pull you up by the shoulders. You shrugged them off, then swung a fist down onto the muddy muck. "Fuck," you said softly. You struck it again.
"FUCK! Here?! Now, of all times?! How
irresponsible and
stupid do you have to be, to try and--"
In the distance, along the membrane that divided realms, you heard laughter. Giggles. Hoots and hollers. Everywhere and nowhere, signposted by the honking of a horn. You growled, then stood up with a glower.
"Cegorach," you hissed. Even now, the most tiresome of the Eldar Pantheon brought you and your family nothing but headaches. But somehow, you won't begrudge him this headache. You tried to scowl, still, but it morphed into a grimace. Around you your men took steps back as they found themselves frightened by your uncharacteristic feral snarl, but Celestine fearlessly took one step forward.
"So will you help?" She asked hopefully.
By your side, you opened your palm. From your tent, a bolt of khaki brown launched out the flaps and into your hand. You swung it upright and up high, discarding the bedwrap as you did so. And the sword you held up high burned gold and blazed with lightning, a twin-headed aquila at its hilt.
It wasn't always the symbol of an oppressive astrofascist empire. It was once a father's cheeky reminder to always look both ways before you cross the road.
Oh, how you miss those days.
"I will come," you said with a glower and a grin, and no sooner did you do so. The moment you made that pronouncement, the Empyrean
hurled and righted itself in an instant. Saint Celestine fell to one knee as her golden aura abruptly faded, returned to mortal strength. And you saw your previous expectations torn apart as the sudden lurch in the turning of time ended all manner of future foresights, and even your ability to read the Tide of Battle. A first in your case; it has never been disrupted in this way before. Not even by the Necrons.
Which only meant one thing.
"Where is the Lord Castellan?" You called out to the Living Saint as you pulled her to her feet.
Panting, she pointed north-northeast. "There, in the Elysion Fields. By the catacombs, where the ancient Necron technosorcery was unearthed."
"The pylons." You uttered those words, and then green lightning from horizon to horizon shot up into the sky. "Kersan, send word to Colonel Tolomend. Prepare for evacuation. Stamp these orders with the Seal of the Lord Castellan." You produced a number of data-crystals from your pocket, each bearing code-dispatches of Vermilion status and higher. "Cadia is to evacuate, immedi ately. And don't
any of you dare follow me. That is not a battle to survive."
Kersan, young fool he is, swallowed his pride and spoke up. "But, Sergeant Major… What about you?"
You looked back at him and smirked, baring teeth. "I died ten thousand years ago, Kersan. You don't want to be like me. Be better. Get out of here."
Celestine grunted and spread her wings. She beat them once, testing their strength, then nodded to herself. "We can get to the cavern mouth in ten minutes hence," the Living Saint said, then she spread her arms. "Come here, Lord Davian."
You shook your head. Then, flowing metal encased you. Armour from a forgotten age, personal protection formidable enough to make a five day conscript a god of war amongst mortal men, girded you from head to toe, your face now an eyeless mask of almost alien intent. You rose up into the air, held aloft by gravitic impellers.
And then the two of you flew off towards the greatest and most conclusive battle of the 41st Millennium, by wingbeat and fusion burn.
Ten minutes. The blink of an eye by military transport standards.
You badly hoped it would be enough.
----
There the Despoiler stood, a rock jutting from a river of flesh and bone. Amidst the Elysion Fields where the Lord Castellan played his great and desperate gambit,
Drach'nyen claimed the lives of hundreds with each swing, tasting flesh and soulblood upon its wet edge or upon the ephemeral waves of blood-red energy it emitted along its edge. Around him, the Justaerin that guarded him were an irrepressible storm of death, the imposition of entropy upon a material world.
Weakened by sacrifice, bleeding from cuts, cut off from his Gods, Abbadon the Despoiler remained one of the most dangerous men on Cadia. Isolated, alone and outnumbered, he was death incarnate. Beneath the very eyes of the Emperor, upon a world that had defied him time and time again, he stood triumphant over the very will of the Corpse-Emperor he denied ten thousand years ago.
Katarinya Greyfax had already been defeated, laying despondent on the Elysion Fields. Ursarkar Creed, the old fool, had been wounded and yet had the rest of the battle to fight. Celestine, the witch, had fled for her life. And Cawl, the old machine-man, was cowering in the caverns below, as if solid rock could stay his fate. All that remained now was a singular fool who thought to interrupt this
execution.
Though the gash on his chest that pierced his ancient power armour continued to bleed in spite of his transhuman biology, though it continued to burn with agonising heat that struck him with pangs of guilt, the Warmaster of Chaos Undivided seethed with grim laughter as he walked towards the girl that had inflicted that wound. She glowed golden with ghostly flames, yet that light flickered intermittently and erratically on her. Her stance was unsteady and unpracticed, telling of someone who was not used to the dance of death on the grimy battlefield. She was barefoot, so her feet were stained with mud. Her dress was white, so now it was stained with dark crimson and khaki muck. She breathed heavily, exerted for the first time now that her divine power could not be fully unleashed.
She was the Goddess of Sacrifice, Pandora. She was Child of the Emperor, last and youngest. She had arrived in the hour of the Imperium's need. And she had been found wanting against a true Champion of Chaos.
"What are you, little Godling, without your father's protection?" Abbadon the Despoiler chuckled darkly. Another swing, a bare parry. Sparks flew, chips breaking off the chainsword's teeth that cut into the young girl's shoulder. "Without the Gods, I am still
Warmaster. Without your godhood, you are
nothing!"
Abbadon swung again,
Drach'nyen biting deeply into the borrowed Chainsword. Pressing against it with all her might, Pandora cried out, her pink eyes igniting gold for an instant. Emitting waves of force, she pushed the Despoiler back once more and broke the clash of their blades. Then she struck forwards with a thrusting stab, a demonstration of her great, yet fleeting power. Right for his primary heart. Ripe for a killing blow.
Right into a trap.
Tendrils of shadow sprang out from the dirt below, snaring the chainsword. It flared with amaranthine light from within before the light died and the sword was crushed into pieces. The ground beneath her feet turned dark as well and the girl-Goddess fell to her knees, then to her waist. The golden light faded from her irises as her pink eyes were contorted with fear. Where the shattered pieces of her borrowed sword laid and were consumed emerged a towering winged shadow bearing horns, both greater and lesser than the Despoiler himself.
"B-Be…lakor…?!" The girl-Goddess gasped with shock, between laboured struggles to free herself. Yet, her power was lost for the moment, and though the shadows burned, all she remained was a clumsy girl unprepared for this stage. Trivial to capture, in spite of all she could become.
The shadow smirked, his smile starkly white against his darkened silhouette.
"One and the same, Lady Sacrifice. How many times have we fought?"
"Once too many--GHH!" Liquid shadow poured out of her mouth, then formed a muzzle around her face. Be'lakor, the First-Damned, shook his finger at her.
"Tut tut, girl. There will be time enough for quips later. I have… other matters." Then he turned, first and greatest of the Daemon Princes, to the current most favoured pawn of the Four.
"As for you, Ezekiel… Your putrid guts aside, I'm willing to lend you some aid… In exchange for this girl, and an unconditional request."
"Be'lakor…" The Despoiler seethed as he glared at the First-Damned, yet he could not find himself to spite Be'lakor out of hand. It was rare for the damnable creature to show his face this brazenly in the first place. "The Goddess and no more. You have as much to gain from this arrangement as I do."
"Ho…" Be'lakor grinned again, a bright white rictus against pitch black midnight.
"I accept. Come now, gather your Justaerin. There's a storm coming."
"Hmph. I am well aware of the Corpse-Saint's imminent arrival." As he said that, he turned,
Drach'nyen raised over his head, and parried the overhead swing of Celestine's flaming sword. The
Geminae that followed her followed up with blows, just as easily cast aside by a sweep from the
Talon of Horus. "Pathetic as ever, Saintling. Without your corpse, you are
nothing."
"Not her," Be'lakor said with a pained smirk. He gestured with a finger and Pandora slipped beneath the muck without a second gasp, struggling all the while.
"The one she's hiding."
As Be'lakor spoke, while the pool of darkness shrank towards nothingness, a man in silversteel plate landed lightly as a feather. He swung once, yet cut the ground a dozen times. The pool collapsed, the ground split open into a maw, and the girl that had been dragged below was cut free. The man then snatched her from the air just as the First-Damned reached for her. Each exchanged a dozen blows in the blink of an eye, the Shadow-Lord losing an arm and the silver knight shedding his helmet in a hail of flaking scales.
As each retreated from a fatal opening exchange, the silver knight set down the girl gently on the earth, his flaming sword that bore the twin-headed eagle still poised to strike at the greatest of Daemon Princes. Be'lakor chuckled as he regrew his arm, then grew several more, as the Despoiler gaped for a moment at the power that he caught but a glimpse of just before. The man that had arrived had moved faster than even he could see, in all his transhuman glory. Lacking strength, he clashed evenly against a great servant of the Gods and came out equal.
And the man who had done this, the raven-haired knight who bore a flaming sword, was no great sorcerer or psyker. He was but a man.
Only human.
What manner of power was
this?
Freed yet weakened, still reeling from her capture, Pandora could only murmur softly. "D…Davian…?"
"You did good, Panda," the silver knight said, smiling only to her. "I'll take care of this…" His gaze drifted over to Be'lakor and his expression hardened with disdain. "...This son of a
bitch."
Be'lakor laughed and the First-Damned clapped.
"Ezekiel, allow me to introduce First Star Lord Davian Lee Everett: Firstborn Son of the God-Emperor of Mankind, Heir Apparent to the Imperium, and the Great Disappointment of the Anathema Himself!"
There was stunned silence, then a scoff. Davian took one step towards the Shadow-Lord and the Shadow-Lord took one step back. "How does it feel, then," Davian said calmly, "To be bested by a disappointment?"
Be'lakor
grinned. "Better, I imagine, than living forty thousand years, only to realise you're only good for War."
"I hurt myself with that everyday. You'll have to try harder, Slave Number One."
Be'lakor laughed, deep belly rumbles.
"Oh, how I've missed this. I've longed for another clash, Firstborn, since that battle in the Iron War. But, alas, there are other powers at play here. We shan't tarry."
"I'm going to rip you in half and skullfuck what remains for trying to take my sister," the Soldier said calmly.
"My, so eager… But, praytell, Firstborn." Despite the Null Field, the First-Damned snapped his fingers and tore more wounds into the Warp. From one emerged a giant who wore the guise and armour of a man, yet burned with light and wore his own face like a mask around a furnace. From another, a second giant, girded in steel and bulked with rage, bearing a great hammer and mighty guns on his wrists, dozens of claw-like tubes scraping bare skull like a great beast had him in his grasp. Each Daemon Primarch looked upon the Firstborn, one with a grin and the other with a scowl, as more Word Bearers and Iron Warriors emerged upon the Elysion Fields.
Hundreds of Space Marines and two Daemon Primarchs joined the First of the Daemon Princes and the Warmaster of Chaos Undivided and the Black Legionnaires already on the field, opposed only by a wounded Saint and her handmaidens, an ailing Goddess without her strength, a single battered Regiment of the Imperial Guard and their Lord Castellan, and a single old soldier who cannot live without a war, with reinforcements over twenty minutes away and already tasked, an eternity on the battlefield.
"What can you do on your own, when you are but a man?"
Davian rolled his shoulders and twirled his flaming blade once.
"The real question is, what can you do to stop me?"
