Dark Times Cometh

Guardsman Xavier Vonreuter shuddered as the ship Wrath of Gods translated out of the warp. Over the three weeks he had spent in the Immaterium, he had felt the whispers in the back of his mind, but his faith in the God-Emperor, or at the very least, what he stood for, held him fast.

He was a member of the 77th Dachoni Light Infantry. His grandfather had been in the Guard, his father had survived the ten-year deployment, and now it was his turn. It had been said, back on Dachon, that the Vonreuter family was a fine family, blessed by the Emperor to His military service.

Xavier’s mother had always thought otherwise. She hadn’t wanted their only son to be pulled away in the tithe; she had lost an entire family of men to the Guard before marrying Frances Vonreuter. The poor bastards had been on Medusa when the Rapidity broke and warpstorms scoured the planet clean. She had raised her son with her own, if slightly heretical, beliefs. Any Ecclesiarchal official would have had her burned on the spot for her practices, but both she and Xavier had learned very quickly how to hide their feelings.

She was a believer in the sect of Ollanian, a sect that maintained a secret cache of several decamillenia-old data crystals that held recordings of a certain man’s confessions, confessions that lowered the bar set by His followers. They were the personal diaries of Adam, as that was all he identified himself as. They were the personal diaries of the Emperor.

Why they were buried in a savior pod on an agri-world in the middle of Segmentum Pacificus was beyond them. All they knew was that the Emperor was more broken than he had let on. Yes, he had wanted the best for His children, but that desire had led him down very dark paths. He had spoken of a paradise in the Golden Age, of paradise before that even. Even He was stricken with despair. How had humanity fallen so far? Was it his duty to herd them along, or should he maintain his distance?

The Sect of Ollanian was a sect devoted to bringing that paradise back, to bringing the old happiness back. Xavier’s mother had told him of the paradise when he was young, and in a galaxy where Hell was a fact of life, it was a light he gripped tighter than the lasgun he held now.

The Rogue Trader’s ship was fairly nice; the quarters were better than anything the Navy would have given them, and there was a certain freedom in the environment that Xavier liked, but it was still Warp travel. He HATED warp travel. It felt sleazy, like he had just been introduced to a used car salesman.

“Guardsmen of the 77th! Prepare yourselves! Sing praises to the God-Emperor, for tonight many of you will see Him! Give no quarter to the heretics! Slay them all!” the Commissar’s voice, a scraggly, destroyed thing, roared from his personal Leman Russ’s laudhailer.

The troops filed into the landers, and Xavier’s squad was assigned to an Argus. They had separate orders. They were to destroy a bridge in Battlezone Hellgate, a bridge that linked together the corrupted Manufactorum to the single biggest battlefield on planet Gorgon XII. That bridge spewed hundreds of corrupted Leman Russ tanks amongst other things directly into the warzone that had perpetuated for twenty years. They all hoped the Argus would survive the descent.

Xavier gripped his lasgun even more tightly. It was a M37 Munitora lascarbine, a shorter gun than the line infantry’s M36. The skeletal, shitty little butt of the gun dug into his shoulder through the shitty little flak jacket that the light infantry was issued. He settled into the darkened cargo bay of the modified Argus, sitting on the bench seat three men away from the rear drop doors. They weren’t the famed Drop Troops of Elysia, but they knew how to rappel from a “Skywhale”. It would be Xavier’s first time. The squad’s Sergeant came in last, patting the heavy stubber gunner’s shoulder. “Boys, we’re here for one reason. We’re going to take out Bridge D32F1. Normally, the job’d fall on the shoulders of the Elysians or the Spectres, but as you know, we don’t got either, so we’re getting sent. This’ll be the Blooding battle for a couple of you, but stick close to the vets and you’ll survive.

“We’ll be rappelling out here, straight into this building. Vance here will provide close air support until we get into the building proper, then he’ll take away. Each of you has a demolition charge; at least half of them need to be placed to weaken that bridge, although all of them will certainly take it out. We hit the battlezone in ten minutes, so say your prayers. We should be small enough to avoid their flak,” the Sergeant briefed his men, then strapped himself in. He pounded the wall of the ship, sending a clang through the hold. “Take us out there!”

Descent was the most terrifying thing he had ever experienced short of warp travel. The little ship tossed around in atmo, throwing unfastened objects around. The landing was jarring, but eventually the sip straightened out and the ride smoothed out. Finally, they hit the landing zone. The drop door opened, and the descent winches extended. Uncertainly, he stood up and formed up, wincing as Vance let loose another burst of high-caliber stub fire. A heretic splattered the wall, blood leaking from a gasping mouth. Xavier wanted to vomit, but he had made sure not to eat before his first battle. He knew it could only get worse.

Eventually it was his turn. He clipped into the winch, then flung himself out of the Argus, lowering rapidly to the building’s roof. He touched down, and heard something that he would never, ever forget. There came a mechanical whine, followed by a heavy thumping. Beneath it there was the screaming, howling ululation of a heretic wave. The thumping ceased, and there came a whoosh. From one of the other buildings a white contrail erupted, and Xavier could see the large, black warhead at the tip. The rocket slammed into the Argus where the wing met the bulk of the lander, where the left engine was mounted. The detonation tore the engine apart, blew the wing off, and sent the ship into a downspiral…and he was still attached to the winch.

The cable pulled taut, snapping him off his feet and dragging him towards the edge of the building, and a thousand-foot drop after. He fought to undo the carabineer, but the damn thing had gotten locked on. He dug out his knife and hacked at the steel cable, desperately trying to get the thing undone. No one came to his aid.

Finally, not even a foot away from death, the cable finally parted. The Argus slammed into the ground in a fireball, and from the rooftop exits a horde of heretics poured forth. There was a rat-a-tat as the light stubber they brought opened fire, and blood sprayed as heretics jerked to the ground. Xavier heaved himself up, to meet a heretic’s mad glare. In a split second reaction he whipped up the lascarbine and put a bolt through the man’s head, cooking his brain. The pressure caused his head to detonate in a mess of blackened grayish goo. Xavier felt like puking, but forced it down. He had a fight to survive. He tried to get to the little fortification the other surviving guardsmen had set up, but the heretical flood had overwhelmed them. The maddened animals rushed him, and desperately he sprayed at them, trying to keep them away. Finally his gun ran dry and the heretics rushed him.

“Halt, peons!” a sable, mechanically-augmented voice echoed over the roof of the building. The wave of mutated flesh ceased, falling prone and prostrating themselves before the heavy thumping footsteps. From the tide of flesh a tall, inhumanly tall figure emerged. His armor was a deep blue with golden filigree and a huge headdress. Oh, no, nononononononononono, not one of THEM! Xavier begged, but this was reality. A Sorcerer of the Thousand Sons Traitor Legion, one of hundreds of similarly terrifying beings, stood not five feet from him. Flanking him were two of the non-gifted Thousand Sons marines, one of which had a long, bulky rocket launcher slung over his back. Both were armed with the warpfire bolters that Thousand Sons were reviled for.

“A lone guardsman, a heretic, that is fighting for the Corpse-Emperor. You have no idea how amusing I find this,” the Sorcerer laughed, a rumbling laugh that echoed with centuries of cruelty and malice.

“Shut up, traitor, and get it over with. I’m not afraid to die for my Emperor!” Xavier cried out, but the waver in his voice betrayed his fear underneath the words of faith and bravado.

“Don’t make me laugh, whelp. You are terrified, and fear death as you should. You fear us. Your Emperor is dead, mortal, and he cannot help you. You are at our tender mercies. Be grateful we follow the Changer of Ways as opposed to those filthy scumlicks that call themselves the Emperor’s Children, following their hedonistic genital-fondler of a god!” the Sorcerer growled. He bent down and grabbed the back of Xavier’s flak jacket in a power-assisted fist, hauling the human up to stare at him through malicious eye-lenses. “You are a perfect candidate for Tzeentch. I will send you to him, that He might judge you worthy of his gift. He shall make you Lord of His Changed, lowly guardsman, and you shall bring about much revolution in His name. Rejoice, mortal, for you are about to meet the God that shall make your name known by all,” the Sorcerer laughed with insane, malicious glee. Behind him he ripped open a portal to the Immaterium, a seething hole in reality that flowed over Xavier’s mind like a slimy ripple. “Here, I’ll even mark you so that no other Daemon tries to intercept you,” the Sorcerer would’ve grinned an evil grin if his face wasn’t sealed in the helmet. Xavier felt an invading presence that made his bones feel like jelly and his organs feel like sauce. Then the Sorcerer dragged his limp, unresponsive body to the rift. “Enjoy your new master!” the Sorcerer chuckled darkly, then tossed him in.

Tzeentch sat in his Castle of Plotting, as he named it. Of course, to his followers it was known as a more fear-inducing title, but he liked to keep it informal with himself. One of his Sorcerers had opened a portal to his Castle, and was sending through a candidate. Hmmmm…to Spawn or not to Spawn...Spawn are fun, but they’re not fun beyond a point… the god of disorder thought to himself.

Then his psyche came into contact with the candidate, and the Castle shook with his scream of pain. It hurts it hurts it hurts IT HURTS GO AWAY! He mentally screamed as the pain ripped through his infinite mind. This…thing…couldn’t possibly be human, humans didn’t hurt this much! In his psychic flailing, he hurled the thing away from him, away from his Castle, and away from everything.

Xavier felt the…thing…of immense power hurl him away, hurl him from everything he knew. It hurt, blazed unlike any other pain he had ever known.