It didn't take long to reveal what had the Emperor in such a hurry. Contrary to the Magos's statement, it was a frigate, an Imperial Army frigate to be specific. In fact, two identified Gloriana battle-ships, a legion worth starships and an unknown Space station were long gone by the time he reached the hanger bay, leaving the sole frigate.
And this one was radiating PURITY so bright that two of humanity's most powerful psykers could hear the horrified scream of daemons. The Emperor also heard the enraged roar of the Whore and smug/raging laughter of the Butcher for some reason he vaguely felt, not knowing exactly what to make of them.
As per the order of the Emperor himself, it was guided toward Bucephalus with utmost respect. So, it would be understandable to say the following Primarchs(Magnus, Leman, Rogal, Perturabo, Lorgar and Horus with Konlad slinking along secretly) were aghast when an Astartes came out of said frigate. But it was not because it was a mere Astartes that the Emperor welcomed him personally. It was the presence of some kind they could feel from him, similar to the Emperor and yet different. It momently stunned them.
"WELCOME, SCAFRIR. I'M SURPRISED YOU ARE
HERE."
When the Emperor said 'here', it was not as simple as 'this place'.
Here, as in present.
Here, as in this timeline.
Here, as in an alternative universe.
All those, bundled into a simple word like 'here'.
It was an underwhelming choice of word, and it was entirely intentional. The simpler a word was the surer a meaning was. It would calm the warp and his children and anchored Scafrir here, in the timeline. And it did.
Magnus looked at the Emperor with recognition and surprise, for one needed to know what he/she intended to do to the degree of a minuscule detail for a simple method like that to work.
Scafrir sharply saluted.
"I apologize for the sudden arrival, my Lord Emperor and Primarchs. Lord Alpharius was quite insistent to hasten the journey."
Leman perked up.
"Wait, Scafrir? Ain't it the name of Kesar's Master of Scout?"
"Yes." nodded Rogal.
Perturabo facepalmed and smacked him in annoyance.
"That's not what he asks, you willfully dense moron. He asked if he really is the Scafrir we saw in the vid."
"Do you mind to explain how you come here?" Lorgar asked "With
your father here was not here and all that……."
Scafrir stared at him. It shut him up.
He didn't know why, but he felt like being stared by certain death. It could be an ominous air around the marine, his finger twitching toward a Volkite Caliver or any other things about him. Whatever it was, it unsettled him.
Scafrir, after some moment of silence, took off his helmet.
"Hm, Lord Alpharius was right. You are different."
He smiled a kind, relieved smile. Tense atmosphere lost its tension with it. Lorgar sighed in relief, feeling like he passed some kind of test. Horus cleared his throat.
"I suggest we go back to the viewing room. It's become apparent Scafrir here is the Scafrir we saw from the other timeline. It would do better to introduce him to others and get some insight from him about the record. If you don't mind?"
"I don't mind." Scafrir shook his head.
"THAT SETTLES IT THEN." the Emperor clapped once and spun on his heel. "COME ALONG. THERE IS MUCH TO DISCUSS."
"Of course, Lord Emperor."
The Emperor and Scafrir headed back to the room, followed by Horus in front of bickering Rogal and Perturabo. Leman and Magnus were strangely silent after them deep in their thoughts. Lorgar was behind all of them, for Konrad whispered in his ear from out of nowhere before slinking away.
"You are lucky to redeem yourself before he comes."
"What does he mean?" Lorgar wondered out loud.
Back in the viewing room, Magos Lehm was hymning 12-layered holy cant of Mechanicum in a religious fever over a FULL STC. Already, the Fabricator-General of Mars was preparing to send their envoy and Ferrus promised to accompanied them himself.
Lion'el and Jaghatai were meditating.
Fulgrim and Sanguinius brainstormed about the effect and influence of said STC usage with Ferrus adding his point now and then.
Mortarion wondered alone in his mind if the STC would be able to help clear the atmosphere on Barbarus.
Roboute skimmed through STCs he received from exchange among brothers, with Vulcan and Corax doing the same.
Alpharius was still sulking about his counterpart one-upping him while Omegon was freaking out about Konrad having slipped out of his perception entirely.
Angron? He was busy enjoying mental suplex and flex the Nail keeping him from before, trying many, many puzzles and riddles.
They stopped whatever they were doing, except Mortarion daydreaming still, when the presence of the Emperor became close. The door opened.
"BOYS, WE HAVE A GUEST!"
And here came an Astertas whose presence was strangely similar to their father and liege.
"Oh, my……." mumbled Sanguinius widened his eyes slightly, representing the feeling in the room. They knew who the man was.
"THIS IS SCAFRIR OF THE ETERNAL WARDENS FROM ANOTHER REALITY. BEFORE YOU ASK, YES, HE'S THE SAME SCAFRIR WE SAW MERE HOURS AGO."
"It's a pleasure to meet you, my Lords. I will help you understand something in my universe you might have question while you watch the vid." saluted Scafrir.
Roboute blinked. "I have so many questions."
"No shit, Sherlock." muttered Angron.
Lorgar just took his seat and began to think about Konrad's words. It somehow bothered him greatly.
"Oh, right. Questions!" exclaimed Magnus "How did you come here? What was that massive warp disjunction for? You said Alpharius sent you here, right? What had he done? And─"
"FOR FARTIN' WOLF'S SAKE, MUGGER MAG! STOP NERDIN'!" roared Leman.
"Pff……!" Rogal was too late -or too loud- to hide his mirth. Perturabo saw it and stumbled, unintentionally toppling over Konrad who tried to sneak past him.
Fortunately, Horus held him fast, preventing him from bowling over Corax's dataslate pile. Vulcan, a goodhearted man that he was, also tried to help him, only to knock down his own pile.
One of the dataslates flew past Mortarion, who was startled out
of his reverie because of it. He instinctively tried to reach toward Manreaper of which was with him currently. His hand, instead, hit puzzle collection of Angron's. It was promptly reduced to debris, scattering its remains and dust all over the place.
"HEY, WATCH IT!" Angron scowled at Mortarion.
"My eyes!" this shrieking was from Fulgrim whose eyes took some blow of small remains.
"AHCHOO!" and this was from Lion'el who was caught off guard by this absurd turn of an event and inhaled the dust. His sneeze was so powerful that it threw everything on the table off around.
Some of everything hit Ferrus' head, another some hit Lorgar's nose.
Jaghatai, who sat right opposite side from Lion'el and took the full blow of the sneeze, wiped out spit and dust it brought to his face. The twin Primarchs long since hit the deck under the table.
And Scafrir looked on everything with a polite approximation to interest. But his mind was a whirlwind of confusion.
What's happening?
The Emperor stood very still, his face burning with shame and embarrassment and the halo on his head becoming brighter and brighter. Seeing what was coming, Magos Lehm immediately escaped from the room, sealing the door tight behind him.
"SILE-RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRNCE!"
Lehm and Constantine, who was guarding the door, looked at golden light leaking under it and each other.
"NOW EVERYONE HAS CALMED DOWN, YOU CAN COME BACK IN, MAGOS."
The Magos gingerly walked in. What he saw baffled him. Everything was clean and neat, just like it had been before all the gathering and viewing. Huge round table in the middle of room was devoid of any nick-nacks or small machinery except Holo-projector used for viewing. The Emperor and Primarchs sat in their own thrones.
But Scafrir, he was sitting on the Emperor's laps like some kind of a Plush Astartes. And he sure as the Great Cog looked comfortable for an Astartes sitting on his own lord's laps. He even had the audacity to shrug with awkward smile when he stared at him.
'NOT A WORD.' Deadpan face of the Emperor warned him before he even thought about commenting.
"Play the next record about our lost brother's possible affair if you please."
Lehm was just thankful of Horus to give him an excuse to turn his mind away from imperial family matter. He didn't smell cold sweat some of Primarchs drenched in, and certainly didn't see burnt hair or remain of nosebleed here and there.
No. Nay. Non. No, sir. Of course not. He didn't care nor want to care. 01010001 01110101 01100101 00100000 01110011 01100101 01110010 01100001 00100000 01110011 01100101 01110010 01100001
So he turned away from bizarre scene of an Astartes playing a plush and played the next record of TLP.
At the beginning of the year, Kesar received updates as to the cult situation on his homeworld Valhalla. It was both good and bad. Good because it weakened the cults, bad because of how bad the situation was previously. It turns out that the cults had distributed various daemonic artifacts throughout cities, which had corrupted thousands. When they were found, the objects were immediately thrown into the sun. This was a major investment by the cults, and with its destruction, future operations against them should be far easier.
"Is it common for cultists to obtain artifacts?" asked Sanguinius with some perplexity. "They seem to be omnipresent wherever any kind of warp cult set on a place."
It was Magnus who answered.
"The answer is both yes and no. Yes, because anything can be an artifact with enough warp injection and a simple ritual. No, because a thing that simple is not powerful enough to deserve to be called an artifact. It would be good at corrupting things living or otherwise at most, but that's all. It wouldn't make a significant difference to the holder sans, of course, corruption."
"Of course." said bitterly Fulgrim. Ferrus looked at him with steady gaze as consolation, Fulgrim smiled a little back as expression of gratitude.
"I'm not only one to feel uneasy at this artifact trick, am I?" Vulcan looked around for reaction.
"No." / "No, you are not." Rogal and Perturabo answered simultaneously.
"Obviously." Mortarion snorted.
Meanwhile, Kesar began looking into the information from the Library of Nalanda, specifically the section on runes. While much of the information had degraded with time, Kesar was still able to piece together how the basic parts of a rune, such as its shape, cause certain effects. This opened a realm of possibilities, such as creating runes to banish daemons. Moreover, Kesar was certain that if he was able to further understand more details of how runes function, such as how the writing instrument used affects the effect, then he could begin creating his own runes not specifically keyed towards banishing daemons. However, there would certainly be drawbacks to any runes that Kesar had yet to determine.
"YES, IT WILL BE USEFUL." the Emperor smirked with all teeth.
"It certainly was, my Lord." agreed Scafrir.
"Do you know about any of those runes, perhaps?" asked Magnus, agog.
"Unfortunately, no." Scafrir shook his head. "Librarian-brothers knew, but I'm not one of them."
Everybody took a note that the Librarium was a thing in his universe.
Corax pointed out another word to note.
"'Was"? When is the point of time you have come from?"
Scafrir smiled mysteriously.
"Quite some time later, Lord Corax, quite some time later."
With his affairs squared away, Kesar decided to assist his brother Corvus Corax with the Hitchlock. While the situation on Sakini I was desperate, it was stable. Meanwhile, his brother would only ask for help if the situation was truly dire. As such, Kesar elected to travel to the Hitchlock system.
"That's, good……." Corax slurred the end of his sentences. He didn't remember about 11th brother. That memory was sealed and gone. But he knew his name had not been 'Kesar' nor come to help him with the Hitchlock.
It was apparent he was not the only one to notice those facts.
"Who, nay, what was it that affected him so to differ from ours?" wide-eyed Perturabo nearly exclaimed. The sheer magnitude of diversions it would cause, not to mention the likelihood of which 11th to become 'Kesar' they were seeing for happening, was astronomical. If anyone asked probability for both to happen, his answer would have been smaller than a millionth.
Glancing at him, Dorn almost raised an eyebrow. Perturabo looked strangely more emotional than usual. Roboute also seemed to notice his strange behavior if a twitch between his eyebrows were to indicate.
When Kesar arrived in system, he was immediately called on board by his brother. It was the first time Kesar had met one of his siblings. While he did not avoid them, he had actions that simply required his presence at the time. As such, he was looking forward to seeing his brother.
When Kesar and his honor guard arrived, they were brought to the bridge where Corvus Corax stood. "Hello, brother. I appreciate your aid in this matter."
Kesar smiled to see the warmth in that statement. While he could tell that much of it was for the sake of politeness, there was clearly some appreciation for the assistance of the Eternal Wardens. "Think nothing of it brother, you called for aid and I answered. It is what siblings do."
"Nevertheless, I know that you are busy with your own compliance. It is still the early days of the crusade, so your compliance rate is understandable. If you require my advice, I am happy to give it after this damn system is dealt with."
"Wow, that's……." Unable to find appropriate words, Leman waved his hands toward the Holo-projector.
"Grating?" Magnus suggested innocently.
"Annoying?" / "Provocative?" Twin Primarchs participated for teasing.
"It's sure as furk inviting for me to dish out some beating." quipped Angron smiling with all fangs.
"How smug of you, little raven." smirked Konrad.
"Shut up, you lot." Corax crossed his arms and scowled. "I wouldn't insult a brother, one that came to help, in the first meeting without very good reason."
"So, you in the vid were insulting Kesar for some reason?" Horus wiggled his eyebrows.
Corax turned around to look at Horus so fast it left an afterimage.
"Et tu, Horus!"
Everyone else burst out laughing, Corax following suit shortly after.
"For real though," he continued after a moment of laughing, "it was not his intention to belittle Kesar, I'm sure."
Kesar was not annoyed at the acknowledgment of his low compliance rate. While he was in the bottom five in terms of compliance rates, it was a strategy that worked for them. Moreover, Corax was not giving an insult, merely stating a fact. "I appreciate the offer. Judging from your tone I take it casualties have been heavy."
"See?" it was Corax's turn to smirk.
"Hm." shrugged Konrad.
"Sadly, many members of the Imperial Army perished. The Hitchlock appear to turn their captives into grotesque biomechanical monstrosities. In the open, these creatures are easily dealt with, but the Hitchlock are an insectoid race and much of the fighting occurred in tunnels. As such, I ordered exterminatus to be enacted to preserve further lives."
"An unfortunate necessity. Would targeted bioweapons work?"
Corax shook his head slightly, "No, their tunnels were sealed by miles of dirt. While my sons killed millions of the Xenos, the populace numbered in the billions. Also, the situation in the asteroid belt is even worse."
"I would assume so. With their bases spread out by large distances, our forces will have trouble dealing with them. Especially if they have long range weaponry."
Corax fully grimaced at this, "That they do. The asteroid belt is littered with defenses. Point defense weapons, long-range capital ship killers, mobile fortresses, and once we land we will face forces specialized in tunnel warfare alongside a large populace."
Corax grimaced just like the visage in Holo..
"I still remember that clusterfuck of a campaign. My Ravens and I were alone, nobody came to help. Targeted bioweapons worked some extent, but not by much. The approximate four fifth of my sons deployed there died because of all that defense. And we had to chase all over the system since some of the Hitchlock escaped."
He forgot to breath when the overwhelming Back-breaking Aura of Love and Regret emerged from his next seat.
"Oh, brother……!" It was from Vulcan.
'Ah,' Corax mused, 'THIS is how I die.'
*CRARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRCK!*
"I'm sorry, Brother! I SHOULD HAVE COME! I'm sorry! I'm so sorry!"
"O' darkness, my old friend……." *Retch* Corax threw up the blood.
"Oh, furk!" Lorgar jumped out of his seat with blazing psykic light and slapped Vulcan's cheek. "STOP HUGGING CORAX, VULCAN! YOU ARE KILLING HIM!"
That and his psykic suggestion snapped Vulcan out of hug frenzy.
The Emperor sighed and snapped his fingers once while holding Scafrir still before he vaporized Lorgar's head with his stupidly powerful, spirit-awakened Volkite Caliver. With a finger snapping, Corax was again a shine and dandy.
Only Lion'el, Jaghatai, Leman and Angron sensed something amiss. And Angron became aware of Scafrir's murderous intention against Lorgar.
He gave a look at the Emperor. He just shook his head in a bare minimum angle.
Angron decided to do not make a remark.
Kesar paused considering the situation. It would be difficult to find a solution, but there were a few ideas he had. "There are some options, we could bombard the asteroid from range, their orbits should be relatively predictable. We could also deploy large amounts of thunderhawks and go from one habitat to another, overwhelming each with massive numbers of Astartes. We could also attempt large scale infiltration and sabotage of the defensive measures."
"While those ideas have merit, one issue is many of the bases defensive firing fields overlap with other bases. This creates a truly ridiculous number of kill zones. I recommend combining our Legion specialties. While the Eternal Wardens specialize in blitzing and securing locations, my Legion would excel in crippling attacks against your sons."
Horus groaned.
"No wonder you were delayed for years, Corax. They had milked all the merits from an asteroid belt."
"A suitable fortification and the prepared escape route." Rogal nodded, "Yes, it's indeed disadvantageous for Corax alone, considering his preferred strategy."
"I agree." said Perturabo looking many thing but wanting to agree with him.
Roboute rubbed his chin. "Speaking of preferred strategy, we might as well discuss about inter-legionary warfare. We are too diverse and specialized to perform a proper cooperation on the spot."
"A topic for later discussion?"proposed Sanguinius.
All other Primarchs expressed their agreement.
To be continued.....
