"I actually think the solution is quite simple," Axis said after a moment of consideration, "Isn't it just a matter of beating him senseless and then putting him on the Golden Throne? If Horus can do it, so can I. I'll fight Horus, and I'll fight the Emperor as well."
The thought process of a Saiyan was just that simple and direct.
Besides, the Emperor himself was practically asking for a thrashing, so Axis was more than happy to oblige.
An absolute silence fell over the domain for several long seconds. Even the skull-fires burning upon the Brass Throne seemed to freeze solid.
Then, a deafening, almost maniacal laugh suddenly erupted. "Hah! Hahaha!"
Khorne's enormous body rocked with laughter upon his Skull Throne. His giant hand slammed against the throne's armrest, which was forged from countless skulls and metal, creating a thunderous boom.
The impact was so great that it shattered several of the massive daemonic skulls embedded in the throne.
"Hahaha! That's just like you, Axis! This is the Axis I know! Just beat them both up? Hahaha! Only a mind like mine could come up with such a perfect idea!"
Khorne had expected the truth to plunge Axis into despair, to trap him in a quagmire of struggle. He never imagined the Primarch's response would be so crude, so direct, and so perfectly aligned with his own bloody aesthetic.
Axis's solution was entirely outside Khorne's conception of a "plan," yet he found it incredibly satisfying.
"Come on, it's a difficult position for me, you know?" Axis said with a sigh, "I can't find Horus, but I can't just let him win either."
The Emperor had told him long ago that if the day ever came when Axis had to strike him down, he should not hold back. Axis had no intention of holding back. Saiyans never understood the concept of pulling their punches. He decided he would return to Holy Terra at once. When Horus arrived, he would defeat him first, and then he would battle the Emperor.
He would put the old man on the Golden Throne by force. After all, the entity known as the Dark King cared only for the outcome, not the process. It did not matter who put the Emperor on the throne, as long as he ended up there.
Once the Emperor was enthroned, Axis would seize control of the Imperium's myriad problems with thunderous resolve and establish his own faith.
He would even reject Guilliman's future decree to break the Legions into Chapters, raising a middle finger to the very idea.
This Imperium would be his to command.
Among the Primarchs, Axis was confident he could win the aid of his adoptive father Leman Russ, as well as Magnus, Lion El'Jonson, and Sanguinius. If those four knew his true purpose, they would surely support him. He might even be able to bring Rogal Dorn and Jaghatai Khan over to his side. Adding his own sons to the mix, the only true uncertainties were Guilliman, Ferrus Manus, Vulkan, and Corvus Corax.
"The choice is yours, Axis," Khorne's voice rumbled, "But you must understand one thing. Think about why the Dark King wants the Emperor on the Golden Throne. The fundamental reason is to drive humanity into utter despair. With the burden of impending extinction constantly pressing down upon them, humanity will turn to prayer. The Imperial Creed will be born, and the Emperor will gain a vast ocean of faith to suppress the Dark King."
"I know your plan, Axis. I have guessed that you intend to acquire the power of a god through some method of your own. But I can tell you now, it will not work. If you truly attempt such a thing, the Dark King will never allow you to exist. The Dark King wants all of humanity as its fuel, not just to see the Emperor sit on his throne. Did you think the disappearances and deaths of the Primarchs in the ten millennia to come were mere coincidence?"
To be fair, Axis was not skilled in stratagem. Anyone with a modicum of intelligence could deduce his intentions. Though Khorne was not a god of schemes, he was still the eldest of the Ruinous Powers. He would have to be witless not to see Axis's goal. Axis sought to temper his own soul with the faith of humanity, to ascend to godhood himself, thereby gaining the power to confront the Chaos Gods and the Emperor.
Khorne actually welcomed this prospect.
He would even be willing to help. The problem was that the other three Chaos Gods, and the Emperor himself, would never allow it. The Dark King, most of all, would never permit it. There was a reason the Dark King had used various means to eliminate all other human deities.
Humanity could only serve as the Dark King's bait, its grand sacrifice. It was a vast feast the Dark King had no intention of sharing with anyone else.
"Are you saying," Axis's expression shifted, "that after the Emperor is interred on the Golden Throne, all the Primarchs who were killed, wounded, lost, or fell into comas... was all the work of the Dark King?"
"That is correct. The initial phase of your plan could be extremely successful. I am certain of it. The Dark King will give you what you want and allow the Emperor to be placed on the Golden Throne. But afterward, when you try to develop your own faith and build a perfect, unified human empire in the Emperor's stead, it will be forbidden.
"It needs every single Primarch to vanish so that humanity can fully enter an age of mortals. You, your sons, and all the other Primarchs are targets for suppression. It will find ways to make you all disappear, whether by trapping you somewhere or engineering some 'accident' for you."
"You mean the disappearance of every Primarch was its doing," Axis's brow furrowed tightly.
No wonder. No wonder that in the ten thousand years of darkness and despair that followed, not a single Primarch returned.
Vulkan had appeared briefly during the War of the Beast, but it was a fleeting moment.
Leman Russ, without any warning, had abruptly announced he was leaving his Space Wolves to search for the Tree of Life, vanishing into the Eye of Terror, never to be seen again. Corvus Corax had blockaded Lorgar's fortress world. Jaghatai Khan disappeared into the Webway.
Rogal Dorn was lost in battle, leaving behind only a severed hand. Lion El'Jonson returned to Caliban only to be ambushed by Luther and forced into a deep slumber, and Luther certainly did not worship the Chaos Gods. Even Guilliman foresaw his own impending death, which was why he left behind Belisarius Cawl as a contingency.
All of it. It turned out there had been a hidden hand manipulating events from the shadows all along. The Dark King did not simply want the Emperor on the Golden Throne. What it truly desired was the dark and hopeless future, for the despair generated by ten millennia of human suffering was its sustenance.
"Now you understand, Axis! If we Four Chaos Gods truly wanted to annihilate the human race, if we unleashed our full power, humanity could not withstand it! No race could. In fact, at a critical moment ten thousand years in the future, when Guilliman was on the verge of returning, we Chaos Gods even lent a little helping hand to ensure his revival," Khorne said.
He then showed Axis a vision. It was Macragge, ten millennia later. The Primarch Roboute Guilliman was clad in the Armour of Fate forged by Belisarius Cawl. He would die and at the hands of the Eldar prophetess, Yvraine, be reborn.
But at this crucial juncture, the one trying to prevent Guilliman's resurrection was not an agent of Chaos, but his own loyal son, Marneus Calgar. At that very moment, a large force of Chaos Space Marines arrived on Macragge with suspiciously perfect timing. They conveniently surrounded Calgar, and then, just as conveniently, neutralized all the Ultramarines present. This forced the Space Marines to watch as their Father was run through by the Eldar woman's blade, before miraculously returning to life.
[tl/n: AU detail…I think]
This vision of the future was exactly as it would unfold. Khorne showed it to Axis without any alteration.
"So the only Primarch to be resurrected in the future was your doing!" Axis looked at Khorne, his face a mask of shock.
"Indeed. You must understand, we know everything. How could we not have been aware of the plan to resurrect Guilliman? If the Ruinous Powers had wished it, we could have corrupted a few key figures on Macragge and sabotaged the entire affair with ease. We did not even need to interfere directly. If Macragge had not been under siege, how could the Eldar have ever gotten close to Guilliman? If we had not deployed a large number of Chaos Space Marines to that specific location at that specific time, Calgar would have beaten Yvraine to death. It was those very Chaos Space Marines who blocked Calgar and the Ultramarines, allowing the Eldar woman and the Archmagos of the Mechanicus to approach Guilliman. How else do you think he could have been revived?"
"So why did you help the Imperium bring Guilliman back?" Axis asked.
So all this time, the Thirteenth's revival had involved the forces of Chaos. When Axis had read this story before he crossed over, he had always found it strange. The arrival of those Chaos Space Marines had been far too coincidental, perfectly timed to block the over-zealous Calgar. Had it not been for their sudden attack, Guilliman would likely have never been revived.
"To thwart the Dark King, of course. Its birth benefits no one. While I look forward to fighting against it, in some respects, I hope its awakening is delayed for as long as possible. At least until I have finished off that purple fiend," Khorne stated.
The Four Chaos Gods were eternal rivals, and Khorne despised Slaanesh above all others. He would not hesitate to stab his rival in the back if given the chance.
The war with the Dark King would likely be his final battle, and before it began, he was determined to eliminate that purple degenerate.
"Damn it all. Saiyans are terrible with schemes," Axis said, rubbing his temples, "How about I just tell Guilliman everything and let him figure it out? What do you think?" Devising intricate plans was simply not a Saiyan's strong suit. Axis had no idea how to handle such a complex situation.
"Do you think Guilliman would believe you?" Khorne scoffed, "The most likely outcome is that he would think I have deceived you and urge you not to trust me. Frankly, I am surprised you believed me so easily."
Khorne knew the future he had laid out was true, but he wondered how the young Primarch had been able to verify it.
"I believe you because you are a pure warrior," Axis stated simply. "A warrior disdains the use of deception. That is the sort of thing that blue avian fiend enjoys."
The real reason, of course, was that Axis knew the future.
What Khorne had said was the absolute truth. The old Blood God was not lying to him.
"Hahaha! Thank you for the compliment. You truly are to my liking, as are those sons of yours. Now, seeing as I have revealed so much crucial information about the future and explained so many secrets to you today, should you not show some form of appreciation?"
"What do you want?"
"Allow a portion of your Legion to join my ranks. How about it?" Khorne proposed. Axis's sons were the finest warriors he had ever seen, and he coveted them greatly.
"Get lost.
"You know my gene-seed. The Ki energy it produces has a significant resistance to the powers of the Warp," Axis retorted. He then offered an alternative. "How about this. I will give you a few fruits from the Tree of Might."
A Chaos God was still a Chaos God. Old habits died hard. Khorne was still thinking of ways to corrupt his sons. But Axis knew better. Ki offered a strong defense against the Warp.
However, the fruits were a different matter. He was willing to give those away. And was Khorne's Brass Citadel not a domain of a god? An idea began to form in Axis's mind. What if he tried to grow a different kind of Tree of Might right here?
"What would I do with those? I have no physical form. And if you are unwilling to give me your sons, then some of your gene-seed would also be acceptable. I am not picky. Offer me a few hundred of your gene-seeds as a sacrifice, and I will bestow my blessing upon the warriors of your Legion," Khorne pressed.
He meant a true blessing, not a corrupting one. So long as they dismembered their foes with brute force, they would receive enhancements to their strength and vitality, all without Warp corruption, and with even some added Warp resistance.
"Let's pass on that. Our relationship is a personal one. I do not wish to involve the Legion too much. However," Axis said, his voice taking on a new tone, "the fruits I spoke of are not the inferior specimens I grow in the materium. I am talking about planting a special Tree of Might in your domain. A true divine fruit tree. I wonder if you might be interested in that?"
The ideal place to plant such a tree would have been in the Garden of Nurgle, but one needed Father Nurgle's permission for that, and Axis's relationship with the Plague Lord was non-existent. Khorne's domain around the Brass Throne, however, was a perfectly suitable alternative. Axis' eyes gleamed.
"You mean to say this Tree of Might can be grown within the realm of the Warp?" Khorne asked, his interest clearly piqued.
If it could indeed be grown in the Immaterium, then he could certainly consume its fruit. He could even bestow them upon his Greater Daemons and Daemon Princes.
..
.
ps?