"Hmm?"
The Lion frowned, not quite understanding.
Spending five years to build a shuttle had already been the most optimistic timeline he'd budgeted for. It was impossible to go any faster.
"Unless this primordial jungle just grows a shuttle out of thin air…"
He couldn't help the self-deprecating thought.
"By the Emperor…"
But when the Lion turned and followed Zahariel's gaze, his body jolted, scalp prickling.
The jungle really had grown a shuttle—and it even came with its own landing pad!
In the distant green, a large mechanical platform over twenty meters long stood amid toppled trunks.
Its armored sides had already irised open, revealing a shuttle fixed within.
It was an emergency evac asset the Savior's logistics had dropped on Kamas.
If this world ever faced an irresistible catastrophe, survivors could take this shuttle off-planet to seek aid or flee.
Preserve a final ember. Transmit intelligence to the Imperium.
Like the other materiel, the platform had been delivered as part of a complete package—support at the nanny level.
Like fire extinguishers in an emergency system: you might not use them, but you must never be without them.
From the shuttle's hull hung an honor banner of the Savior, gleaming under the floodlights.
"Savior… what kind of person are you, really…"
The Lion stared at the shuttle and its banner, a complicated look on his face.
He was starting to believe those supplies had indeed been deployed by the Savior.
"Seems we're fortunate. Let's go have a look. Here's hoping she still flies."
The Lion sighed, then set off with Zahariel to inspect the platform.
He should have felt pleased.
Yet for some reason, he could not.
He had braced himself for hardship—knife-edge survival in a death-world jungle.
But ever since the name "Savior" appeared, the Lion hadn't seemed to have much chance to do anything.
Whatever they needed simply materialized. All they had to do was scoop up the Savior's drops and skyrocket.
Like lying flat and still winning the game while the MVP was the Savior.
Zzzla~
The ramp rose.
The Lion and his companion cleared authentication and entered the roughly twenty-meter shuttle without incident.
They discovered the Savior's heavy machines had special defensive routines—only humans cleared by the system could enter; otherwise, the platform would trigger countermeasures up to and including self-destruct.
"Shame… the comms can't punch across that scar to reach anyone outside the system."
After tinkering a while, the Lion shut down the comm suite, full of static and whispers, and shook his head.
A craft this small could never mount an interstellar communicator, nor power it.
The good news: every other system was intact. It could lift them clear of this death-world and carry them to other locales in this sector.
"Once we clear the remaining threats on this planet, we depart for another world and contact the Imperium."
The Lion's eyes burned.
He had lavish reserves of materiel now—and a ship that flew. Time to excise the last Chaotic rot on this world.
In two weeks, he intended to break the worst Chaos bastion and several key mustering sites, then depart without regret.
And perhaps find valuable intelligence there.
…
Night. The Passon tribe.
All fell still; even the rainforest itself seemed asleep.
Only the faintest distant wails and tearing sounds reminded one that the dark jungle was lethal.
But that no longer concerned the Passon tribe.
They had the Savior's walls and heavy guns. They feared no raids.
Besides, the mutants could smell the blood of their own kin caked beneath the wall. They would not draw near lightly.
"By the Emperor, what are these made of?"
"So warm…"
"This tribe is like the fabled paradise-realm."
Hada and the others who had journeyed with the Lion ate their fill and retired to the allotted army tents, marveling at the comfort.
The temporary billet of field tents was warm and scented with a faint sweetness.
The lighting was bright; the camp cots and soft quilts gave jungle folk—used to sleeping under bark—the first true comfort of their lives.
That was the peace and ease brought by civilization.
The Passon tribesfolk soon drifted into the best sleep of their lives.
In another tent, the lamp still burned.
The Lion lay on the cot—his broad frame nearly covering it; the blanket was more a throw upon him.
Luckily the cot was composite metal, built strong. It did not collapse.
The Lion tossed, unable to sleep well.
The Savior had exerted pressure on him from afar—and the man wasn't even here. There was no way to claw back the initiative.
He had no choice but to accept it.
Worse:
He was in the Savior's debt—equipment, supplies—only thus could he leave this world…
But these were trifles; the Lion soon set them aside.
His mind returned to his brothers, and to his father on the Golden Throne.
All that had perished could not be restored.
"The burdens of the Imperium's Five Great Segments and of countless worlds fall upon me. I must put this in order…"
He thought in silence. The lines on his face seemed deeper.
If he could help it, he did not want to grow old so quickly, to shoulder so much grief. But time was merciless.
He had awakened to find himself aged—and more weighted with reflection.
He simply wasn't used to it yet.
"Leon is incorrigible—selfish, venomous, jealous—but admirable, brave, dutiful. The wretched boy!"
In private, the Emperor had spoken thus of this first-forged Primarch, his son.
He trusted the Lion deeply—enough to let him privately hold ancient relics and artifacts, such as the Icarus Emergency Protocol.
A direct mandate from the Emperor, it permitted the First Legion under the Lion to retain relics, archeotech, and black-boxed machines without surrendering them to the Adeptus Mechanicus.
In a pinch, it even granted authority to purge Mechanicus elements.
In short, the Dark Angels had caches of lethal relics and archeotech within—some dangerous enough to wound the Imperium itself.
And the Lion had never swerved in loyalty to the Emperor.
Not even when his father chose Horus—more sociable as a general—to be Warmaster, instead of the son who had longed for that command.
Perhaps precisely because the Emperor trusted the Lion, he didn't choose him—keeping the balance among the Primarchs to avoid friction.
And there was the Lion's nature: stubborn, solitary, rigid as an old knight—ever walking the path he deemed right.
Good traits, but ill-suited to mediating between brothers as a Warmaster.
Now the Imperium's burden might fall to the Lion—and he did not feel joy.
He worried he would not be equal to it.
More brothers at his side would be better.
"Father, I will restore the Imperium you founded—or restructure it anew…"
His eyelids grew heavy.
Since waking, he had barely slept. Exhaustion finally took him.
"Forest… forest?"
Half-dreaming, the Lion was back in the woods where he had awakened.
So familiar.
This time his mind was clearer. He recognized where he was.
More shock:
"This is Caliban's forest. Wasn't it destroyed with the planet?!"
Such a surreal dream unsettled a man who held fast to Imperial Truth.
Suddenly the Lion's gaze sharpened, like a hunter scenting prey.
He smelled rot and hot blood—and felt a terrible, awe-inducing presence.
Worse: it belonged to a brother—a Primarch—fouled by the powers of the Warp.
The Lion sprinted toward that presence, faster and faster.
Nothing could stop him.
Ancient trunks shattered against his charging bulk, exploding into splinters. Something within him was awakening.
Boom!!!
He smashed the last giant tree, burst from Caliban's forest—and set foot on barren ground.
Perhaps a meteoric fragment; before him hung ashen stars.
In the void between them, furious fire blossomed; worlds broke and fell, warships exploded one after another like fireworks.
He looked up.
Against an ugly rift-scar, a colossal figure—tens of meters tall—floated like a hell-god, black fire boiling around it.
At that moment, the demon-hulk was tearing a void-fortress in half, ending it. Nothing could stand in the way.
A sweep of its ebon wings sheared a destroyer in two; crew spilled like ants, screaming into the dark.
"Trai… tor!"
The Lion's voice tore his throat, a maddened roar.
Vmmm—
He flared his blade to life and kicked his jump pack, launching straight in.
Without a second thought!
At the same instant, the nightmare colossus seemed to sense him—whirled—and fixed him with eyes that held the deepest night and malice of the cosmos.
A single glance could drive one mad—could swallow a soul.
In that heartbeat, a crushing dread poured out—plunging the Lion's sight into darkness.
Huff—
The Lion snapped awake, bolting upright, drenched in cold sweat. The alloy cot beneath him had twisted and collapsed.
He recalled the horror in the dream and murmured, still shaken:
"So that's the foe awaiting me—a brother fallen into shadow. My mission since waking…"
Perhaps a duel written by fate.
He could feel how powerful, how unstoppable the foe was—beyond the limits a Primarch should reach. Warships and void-fortresses tore like paper in its hands; ship-killer macro-batteries left only scorches.
Yet though the Lion felt fear, his will did not break.
He would find the traitor. He would execute him.
With any weapon and stratagem required—until either the traitor or the Lion lay dead!
—
A few days later.
The Lion and Zahariel led more than a dozen sentinel mechs and over two hundred warriors in personal battle armor out beyond the sea of trees.
They were headed to erase the root of this world's corruption: a dreadful Chaos fortress beyond the forest-frontier.
They followed trails of ash and scorched earth. Along the way lay countless machine carcasses, armor plates, and twisted bones.
Proof of how savage the last war had been.
Hada and the other iron-rider knights were newly clad in mechanized plate; their confidence swelled.
Yet the relics of apocalypse before them stirred worry—could this little host really break a fortress spoken of in dread?
As the column neared the forest's edge, they met more warped beasts, gibbering cultists, and heavier weapons.
There, men truly saw the Lion's might.
Every time he entered the fray, he shattered the foe like rotten wood.
Even heavy Chaos armor—he ripped it apart by hand.
The Lion had grown stronger still; with sheer prowess and presence he bent all hearts and won deeper devotion.
At last the Lion brought his warriors to the forest verge, before a wall of piled ruins.
He was mildly surprised.
Oddly, once they neared the border of the trees, the enemy thinned out.
"Melta charges?" he muttered, noting blackened veins climbing the wall. "That took quite a yield."
"Your Highness…"
Zahariel's face had gone stormy. "There are Astartes remains in the wall. The war may have been even harsher than we thought. The butchers in that fortress won't be easy."
"They nearly slaughtered every resistor—drove the survivors into the jungle as refugees."
The Guardian's words tightened Hada's gut; the knights clenched their bolters.
Beyond that wall lay the killers of their ancestors. The world-enders.
They would stake their lives.
"Have no fear. We will triumph.
I will lead you to grind to dust every enemy of the Imperium. This world will be reborn!"
The Lion's voice was steady, resolute—pure leader's timbre.
One could not help but bow.
Every warrior gazed up at that towering figure as their morale climbed.
The Lion drew a few heavy shock grenades, thumbed them live, and tossed. They dropped true into seams in the wall.
Thump—thump—thump—
After the deep concussions, the twenty-plus-meter wall split in many places—then began to slough away.
The Lion stood before the crumbling mass, cloak flaring in the blast wind.
He drew and lit his blade, voice ringing:
"Ready yourselves, my warriors. This is… the final battle!"
As the words fell, the wall gave way in a roar—revealing what lay beyond.
In a blink, the Lion and the charging warriors froze. Silence. Only the wind's keen.
They stared, blank.
A field of blinding white. No Chaos fortress. No sign of foes.
Only vast craters left by bombardment.
A high-intensity, saturation orbital strike had scrubbed the whole zone—and the follow-up melta beams had glazed it white.
Every Chaotic structure, every warrior within—gone without exception.
In other words, the world's greatest cancer had been excised—by some power with overwhelming brutality.
Not even ash remained.
Hiss—
The Lion's eye twitched. A familiar, ominous hunch crept up his spine.
A heartbeat later, golden light flared ahead—rays angling down to bathe the Lion and his host.
Like descending sanctity.
Clouds had parted; sunlight fell upon a holy statue among the ruins.
In the blaze stood a hundred-meter statue of the Savior, numinous and staggering.
So sacred that even Zahariel couldn't help but breathe out a sigh.
As for the tribesfolk—the holiest thing they had ever seen.
"Gods—that's the Savior."
"It was the Savior who destroyed the world-enders. He saved Kamas—he saved us all."
"Praise the mighty Savior!"
Many tribesfolk wept, falling to their knees in devout adoration.
Even Hada and the knights bowed their heads, offering respect.
The Lion slitted his eyes and gave the statue the briefest glance—then turned on his heel.
He did not want to look a second longer.
His voice was a little tired. "Come, Zahariel."
The Lion would return and depart—leave Kamas, this place of sorrow.
…
Whoosh—
The shuttle punched through the cloud-sea and out of Kamas's atmosphere.
The Primarch—the Lion—left the world behind, taking only Zahariel and a couple dozen knights suited to gene-work, Hada among them.
In the cabin.
The Lion stood beneath the viewing dome, silent before the unending dark.
Zahariel finished with the flight systems and stepped over.
A smile touched his face.
"Your Highness, our timetable has moved up far beyond expectations. This will vastly improve the Imperium's prospects."
He could well imagine it—the return of a legendary Primarch after millennia. How it would shake the Imperium.
Governors, lords, soldiers would fall to their knees before the Lion—worship, pledge, and rally!
More important—those lost brothers of his might finally be freed from their long humiliation and suffering—return to their gene-sire's embrace…
Thinking of the Fallen's fate, the Lion's scion's eyes moistened.
His heart grew urgent.
The Fallen were still being hunted. The first priority was to find them with their gene-sire.
Bring them home to the Imperium.
They remained a formidable host—at least a fraction of Caliban's might before its fall—and most were ancient veterans hardened in a thousand wars.
The Lion needed that strength to rebuild the First Legion!
And Zahariel knew of one of their secret musters—almost certainly the largest.
Find that place, and more of the Fallen could be reached.
"Your Highness, when you see those lost sons, I beg that you forgive any rashness."
Zahariel gave the Lion a meaningful look. "A hundred centuries of grievance and torment have banked too much anger."
The meaning was plain.
When the Fallen saw the Lion, many might do what Zahariel had almost done—draw and fire, to solve the 'traitor' who had abandoned them.
A flicker of hurt crossed the Lion's gaze. He nodded.
"I will not blame those wandering sons. I will persuade them—bring them back to the First Legion."
He had resolved to end the Fallen's pain and wrong—to bring them home, back under their gene-sire!
Whoosh—
The shuttle surged, slipping into the Warp for a short jump.
A long road awaited.
They would pass through many regions, risk much, and make several short translations.
At least the Lion better understood the Immaterium now; he would not be wholly lost.
Their destination—Avalonis!
—
Avalonis System, outer reaches.
Wreckage and rock drifted among the stars—the scars of fallen worlds.
Whoosh—whoosh—whoosh—
The Redemption Fleet burst from the Warp-veil into this debris-strewn void.
Dreamweaver glittered in the starlight.
"Hoo—ly… man, this one's gonna be rough. A world-killer level of power!"
On the bridge beneath the viewing dome—
Eden stared at the wreckage of fleets and worlds ahead—at the huge claw-furrows gouged through some fortress-hulls—and sprang from his beanbag chair.
He gulped down his bite of cupcake, sucking in a breath.
These remains had been wrought by a terrifying, fallen being made manifest in realspace.
It had nearly torn everything apart.
He suddenly felt… maybe even Dreamweaver wasn't that safe…
(End of Chapter)
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