MLP 30K: Rebel Dawn

“Commander, this has to be a mista-” Marr's protest is cut off with a sharp 'quiet' gesture from the Lupercal. Falling into an obedient silence, the pair make their way down the halls, Marr watching the tails of the Lupercal's purple synthskin cloak swaying as's forced to awkwardly hustle to keep pace with his lord's longer strides.

As they walked past the ten terminator wardens and back towards the Lupercal's personal quarters behind the strategium, nothing outwardly looked out of place. But even a cursory moment let Marr detect the creak of a dataslate straining against monumental pressure. The Lupercal clamps his grip on the simple grey tablet as they turn the corner away from the ever-watching wardens.

“This,” Horus waggles the dataslate in front of Marr's face. “This needs to be confirmed. I can not, and will not, accept something so coincidental. I send a message to Prospero, and a week later, this arrives from Terra? Magnus may not know when to restrain himself, but he is no idiot sorcerer. An optimist, careless, and resoundingly ignorant of what's in the hearts of men: yes. But there are few of my brothers who mean better for mankind than he.”

“So, something from Erebus? Maybe it's more falsified reports?” Marr continues alone next to the primarch as they enter a typical grey hall of the officers quarters on their way to the Lupercal's quarters.

“Or blackmail of some sort, if this is even true.” A glower darkens the primarch's features, “I will not overturn my plans based on empty rumours.”

Both lapse into silence, the sound of their footsteps resonating on durasteel deck cladding as they approach a pair of the Spirit's wardens protecting the officers halls. But not for a moment does Marr miss the sound of cracking crystal. The pressure from Horus's fingertips send sharp spider cracks across the dataslate's surface as he lets out a fraction of his growing frustration.

Passing by, they arrive at the great golden doors of the Primarch's quarters, the so-called Wolf's Den. Unlike so many other art-deco surfaces splashed across the Vengeful Spirit, the door had just a carved Eye of Terra embossed over the faint acid etchings of the Cthonian star system.

Without comment, Horus presses his palm to the reader, and after a moment, the doors scrape open with a thump of equalizing pressure. The coolness that washes out from the room makes Marr's eyes squint. It wasn't a freezer, but it was chilly compared to the legion cells and Spirit's crew quarters. He'd never been here, few outside the mourneval ever had.

Inside was strange. It was no stateroom of Europan nobility, but not so undressed as something he'd expect from the Scions of Medusa or Olympia. Instead, it was a large functional space mostly dominated by a large open nave at the centre and separate quadrants: star charts and drawings clutter wide desk spanning almost a third of the ten meter round. Another has trophies levitating in lines of gravitic stasis fields arranged in a stepped series of rows reminiscent of Cthonic columnar joining formations that stud the surface of the ruined world. The hexagonal plates each displace a soft blue field underlighting dozens of artifacts from rings and ancient daggers, to scrolls and relatively new looking medallions. It was a small sanctuary very different from the pomp of the Lupercal's Court.

Summoning Marr over, the Lupercal places the dataslate down on a tablet strewn desk before peeling off his gauntlets. “You have questions that you didn't want others to hear, ask them.”

Snapped out of his stupor, Marr stands at attention, eyes straight ahead and fixed on the star charts at the other end of the room... they were of Ultramar's outreamer rim. “Lord-”

“Tybalt, in private, skip the formalities. If I insisted on honorifics in the confidence of my officers, I'd never get out of the strategium.” he sighs, unfixing the rogarou pelt and casting it on the wide slab-like bedspread as he stands in front of an arming mannequin; two are present for aging sets of artificer armor while a far larger metal scaffolding is evidently meant for his terminator plate.

“S-sir. Of course.” he takes a shaking breath, “Horus, why did you pick me as your envoy? You already have Maloghurst. This is going to cause problems.”

“Yes I do have Mal.” Horus continues, leaving Marr to stand in the entrance of the chamber. “But you are very well aware of what happened on Sixty-Three Nineteen.” The chill that entered his voice more than matched the cold of the chamber, even though the captains breath approaches the brink of misting in the air.

“Yes sir.”

“Let me be clear: you will never replace Sejanus.” Horus hesitates for a moment as he unbuckles the clasp for his cloak. “No one can.” A fleeting moment later, it's swirled onto a nearby pair of silver spikes. But Marr catches the momentary flinch as the primarchs left arm rotates. It was the uncomfortable reminder of the impossible: an unseen injury that hasn't healed in months.

Seemingly oblivious to the look of concern from his captain, Horus continues unbroken, “But I need someone that will represent me, and by extension, our legion. Maloghurst is an excellent diplomat, but think of it this way with just a thread of human vanity: is Maloghurst the face you want to present to outsiders? He is my voice within the legion, yes. I need someone to be my voice to others. I need my mourneval by my side, and Sedirae is too bloodthirsty and impulsive to do anything but get us involved in even more conflicts. I could go down a list of officers, but let me remind you, I do not need to justify myself to anyone, Tybalt. Not to you, not to Abaddon, not to my brothers. I do so at my leisure. But I will say that, given you weren't part of the warrior lodge, I'm more incline to let you out of my sight to run errands.”

The line captain shuffles a little awkwardly, glancing over at the primarch who had the upper portion of his armor off and hung on the mounting racks. “Yes, Horus. But-”

“Besides, I'd have thought the main reason would be obvious.” His chortle emerges as a rolling gravely sound, completely devoid of mirth. Scooping up the rogarou pelt, the primarch flings it across his broad shoulders, draping over a simple grey dress tunic. Stalking up to Marr, the captain nearly flinches from the resolute stride, but a weak smile cracks the Lupercal's lips as he reaches out to clasp the captain's right bracer. Holding it up, he exposes the silver inlay where a crescent moon had been carved just before the assault on Davin's Delphos temple. In a moment, a conspiratorial tone had replaced the warlord's usual vigor, “Because we both know something no one else will accept.”

The Lupercal's nail taps the scarred metal sigil and its silver filling, leaving his answer otherwise unsaid. “Abaddon is ignoring what I said until he can think of why I said it.” Horus sighs, releasing the captain and pacing towards the multitude of star charts with his hands folded behind his back, “though he's more dogged about this than I expected. He will not like the answer when he gets it. Neither will Aximand, though I believe he thinks I was merely senseless at the time. Loken will ask others like iterator Sindermann, he will delve in and study, and he won't push the point until he has a conclusion. He will not get it, either. And Tarik is too... Tarik.”

Still all but fused in place, the captain taps his teeth in thought before tilting his chin down to study the Lupercal as he pores over the star charts. “Forgive me, but have you considered that they might be right?”

The primarch glances over his shoulder, but shows little to betray his thoughts. Instead, he scratches his chin before dragging his fingers through the faint trace of the hairline starting to grow on his smooth scalp. “Of course. But this, this and Magnus, the Glory of Terra, Erebus, and whatever else, it cannot be coincidence. Can you not feel it, Tybalt?” Horus's breathing slows, an evident effort to build a dramatic mystique. He paces before the banks of star charts, reaching up with reverence to trace a hand along a number of systems. “It's not coincidence, it's confluence." The primarchs voice rises and falls as if giving true insight into the heart of a man, and not the symbol of Imperial power. "Everything is converging on this one point, and it's clear to me, now. A choice, no matter which one, marks the end of something and the beginning of something else. They know it, I now it, Magnus knew it, too.” His hand spans the stars before clutching at one system, something Marr has to squint at to see the elaborately labelled title.

Manatax.

The primarch rounds suddenly, catching his captain off guard and fixing him with his piercing golden stare, “I don't believe in coincidence. Fate is made by men. Those that blunder into it and call it chance are those who haven't seen the effort put into making it reality. I will not be a pawn, Horus Lupercal will not be used. Not by Erebus, not by the nobles of Terra-” his voice falls to a nearly inaudible whisper, “Not even by Him.”

Shocked, Tybalt can only stare as his commander scoops up the cracked dataslate and stares down, pacing the perimeter of the room in steady, measured steps. “This is something I should have the answer too, but I don't. To say that things go on just as before, is to say chance and coincidence exists to absolve us of our actions and choices.”

“I couldn't tell you, Horus. I'd like to think coincidence does exist. Or else, Verelum-” He trails off for a moment, a reflexive twitch in his cheek at recalling his lost brother-in-arms. “Verelum was chosen and I wasn't. It was the luck of the draw, nothing more... or else I should be dead, and he should be alive. That. The Glory of Terra. Davin... why couldn't it be just chance?”

“Convenience.” Horus's sharp response catches the captain wrong footed again, and his eyes blink, silently pleading for an explanation. And, perhaps, something more.

Seeing the question, Horus gestures with the dataslate, “It's all too convenient. There was a plan. They knew how to goad me. They knew how to bait us into a fight. There is no force in this galaxy that this legion, my legion, couldn't put to the sword if we committed to it. Despite Gullimans numbers, my father's ten thousand, Kelbor Hal's mythic machine-men: we could shatter any one of them in weeks. This... this was the only way to get us. And do not discount yourself. You are evidently important, too. Even if that means Verelum Moy was made a sacrifice to make it so. All things have a rhyme and reason, and once made known, they will bend to my will. That, Tybalt, is why I suspect that this-” he waggles the dataslate and then tosses it back to Marr, who clumsily catches the device. “-is no accident, either.”

Right or wrong, an indignation seizes the captain as he juts out his chin “Then, should we have destroyed Davin? Maybe there were answers there.”

The primarch's verve drains, his motions becoming less animate. Instead, he sighs as if deflating before turning again to regard the star charts. He meticulously inspects the static convoluted display as if searching them for an answer, “It was necessary to restore faith.”

“In us?”

Horus draws in a long deep breath, leaving the answer unsaid as he breathes out into the open air. “Better for me to be questioned for recklessness than shamed for indecision. There will be questions, and we have enough evidence that passes for justification, if perhaps not true answers.”

As if the dataslate toss had finally broken his golem-like petrification, the captain looks over the ledger and brings it back to life. The cracked screen did little to hinder its operation where four points of pressure made lightning-bolt like cracks through the surface. The message was just as it was before, short and clipped, routed through a half-dozen junctions across Segmentum Solar and past the nav-relay buoys that had been set up in the wake of the expeditionary fleets.

Thumbing through it, Marr glimpses other communiques bundled with the dispatch: several are from bureaucrat adepts reminding legion garrison commanders to set up census routes for newly compliant systems, another two are from the forgeworld of Anvillus regarding logisticae personnel, and more regarding the unfolding efforts against the Auritian technocracy.

But Horus was already talking again, his voice settling into a diatribe while Marr parses out something in the later communiques. “I know you're thinking it, everyone is: why did I recall your forces?”

“It did cross my mind, sir. Then you sent the marshals back out.” Marr confesses before reading several passages over, each written by a Lord Commander of the Emperors Children detailing confusing complaints.

“I said I will not be a pawn, but I will have my pieces in play beyond the reach of others.” the primarchs wolfish grin appears as a thin crack when he glances over his shoulder, “You didn't think I'd let one of my commanders off with just a little warning if they displeased me, did you?” He scoffs. “Now, I have a question for you: you haven't spoken any further with our mutual acquaintance, have you?”

At that, Marr's head shoots up to look at the Lupercal, the dataslate all but forgotten. “No, no, nothing like that. I would have told you.”

“Hmm... as I figured.” Horus sighs, eyes focusing on the charts as his voice slips back into a stage whisper, “No matter. Not yet.” he holds up a hand to indicate no more, realizing full well that he was guarded even here. “Marr, see to it that the Magnus communique is double-checked, personally.”

The smell of lapping powder, stale sweat, and machine oil wafts through the air as surely as the sound of the lifts doors. A band of lumin orbs flicker to light with an electric hum, illuminating the previously dark expanse, exposing the wide open chamber in the bowels of the Vengeful Spirit beneath the astartes' berths.

“It's stupid, absolutely insane. It's idiocy, and it's promoted by an idiot.” Abaddon's gruff snarl barks as soon as the doors had opened a crack. Four astartes stamp down as the retractable railings slide into the floor, laying flush with the metal paneling.

“He's popular now because he was the only one in a position to retake the bridge, nothing more. It'll pass, just like before.” Targost huffs, looking up at the taller First Captain as they shuffle out into the chilly expanse as strips of lumins high overhead flicker to life in three rows to illuminate the room in stark monochromatic glory.

The edges still swim in black shadows, while the edges of the support struts and stanchions holding practice cages and racks of weapons, are reflecting in brilliant relief by the sodium orbs.

“He'll do something to get himself tossed out of favor, just like always.” Sedirae says from behind the pair, like the trailing dog. A forth figure remains silent next to him, cloak still affixed around his shoulders while it had been discarded by others. Horus Aximand remains behind Abaddon, silent as his shadow.

“That's because Maloghurst tried to downplay his council in the past, I doubt he will this time.” Abaddon mutters.

“Not when he's been tossed in with us as some kind of... dissenter.” Targost seethes, tramping out from the lift. “He got lucky, I gave him that damned pistol he's so proud of, and what did I get for it?” he holds up the bionic hand that flexes noisily. “Something of a reminder, then patronized from the sidelines.”

“Be mindful of what you imply, captain.” Horus Aximand sighs. “The Commander knows what he's doing.”

“Not if he's not talking plainly with us, Little Horus.” Targost bitterly bites back, turning to face the taller shaven-headed mourneval captain. “The Glory of Terra was a fiasco because we couldn't communicate with him, and he didn't communicate with us. We lost officers and a lot of legionnaires when we didn't need to. We should have just shelled it from orbit, then let the titans tear it apart.”

“We could never have seen something like that coming. It's unheard of-” Aximand replies, not backing down but not becoming nearly as animated as the slightly shorter assault captain. “How could we? Just like how could we know that the lodge that Erebus convinced us was safe, was full of those things.” he stresses the last word with a sickly twitch of his lips like it was sour to speak.

Abaddon steps away from the group, straight towards the first practice cage while peeling off his armor. It settles on a square bench surrounding a massive support stanchion just off the main center. Sedirae follows him quickly, having gone uncharacteristically quiet the moment the Glory of Terra was brought up.

Targost doesn't relent, lingering alongside Aximand, “Yet he's treating us like we did!”

“No. The Commander distrusts something here, and after our security protocols were breached, who can blame him? Who's ever heard of an astartes commander and a battle company going rogue like that?”

“No one.” Abaddon looks back over his shoulder, having torn off his cuirass before letting it fall to the bench. “No one has.”

“Exactly!” Targost looks back and forth between Aximand and Abaddon, “that's my point. There has to be something worse behind this, something xeno, it has to be something like that. It's like Rangdan-”

“The Rangdan xenocides was over a century ago and clear across the galaxy. This is nothing like Rangdan.” Aximand mutters.

“it's exactly like Rangdan!” Targost presses as Sedirae remains unnervingly quiet, though he does get a glance from his friend for a moment. “The delusions, the sudden disappearances, the seemingly impossible coming to life? We cannot become compromised by a xeno effort, Aximand.”

“Agreed.” echoes Luc Sedirae in a laconic manner that gets even Aximand to glance his way. Put into the spotlight as he strips out of his armor, he glances to and fro. “What? Something like a mind-controlling bug makes more sense than Erebus turning on us out of the blue.”

“Ezekyle,” Aximand calls as his friend and fellow mourneval captain stalks to one of the weapon racks to look over the selection of arms. “Ezekyle, we can't make more rash choices. It's what got us into this, we should never have taken the Commander into that temple. It's on us. Serghar, for Unity's sake, you called for the vote!” Aximand's voice rises, finally breaking into the unsureness as he glances back and forth between his companions in fugitive spasms.

“No, Erebus called for the idea first. I just allowed it.” Targost replies before saying, “come on. You saw what was down there. Tell me that mind control from xenos doesn't make sense. The Davinites were already a hairsbredth from aliens, they were't real humans... not really.” The captain presses and nods to Abaddon. “And didn't you say Horus was acting strange when you found him?”

“Serghar.” Abaddon looks over his bare shoulder and drags a dull metal great-blade from the arming rack with a rasp. “If you're going to even hint that the Commander is somehow compromised, I'll finish what the Word Bearer couldn't and beat you to death with this.”

The assault captain's insistence falters for a moment, taking a fraction of a step less than Aximand who nods his support for the First Captain.

“But he was acting a little strange. We should be going for Colchis, we should be trying to seize them by the throat and take what we need. I mean, if it just so happens that Serghar's right, then it'll spread. We can't let that happen. So we should be finding a way to drag Erebus out of hiding. Though Lorgar has to pay for not paying attention in the first place.” Abaddon mutters perhaps more sedately than normal, spinning the massive six-feet of blunted steel in one hand making a warbling thrum as it awkwardly cuts the air.

“Ezekyle,” Luc pipes up, now free from the confines of his armored plate and keeping on only the tight fitting undershirt. “What was it that you said Horus told you to get?” He hop skips to the arming rack and swiftly pulls a pair of curved metal charnebal sabers from the mix.

“A horse. A winged horse.” Abaddon remarks, making his way almost lazily towards the practice cage with the massive great blade still whirring in a figure eight. “A winged horse that can talk.”

“Something he said he, what? Met, talked too?” Targost inquires again.

But at that, Abaddon merely shrugs. Sedirae takes the pair of blades and hustles over to Abaddon, following over to the practice cage. “He's getting awful chummy with Tybalt Marr these days. Didn't see the envoy status coming, not for screwing up an operation like that.”

With an irritated sigh, Aximand finds his way to the bench but doesn't shift to remove his armor or even his cloak. “Serghar, I know you're South-pit-”

“Scum!” Luc laughs a bit, flashing a more feral grin at the interruption as he and Abaddon enter one of the enormous cages.

“... yes, anyway, I know that you're South-pit, but Horus grew up on the North Plate. Equines were a thing there, tell him Ezekyle.” Aximand gestures with a simple head bob, directing their attention.

Taking up a stance on the far side of the ring, the towering figure of Abaddon seems almost locked in a simple rhythmic exercise of spinning the blade. It stops suddenly, upright in one hand, and the pale Cthonian glances to meet Serghar's gaze. “He's right. They were part of some of the old rich mining houses and a few of the guilds, House Tartarus, something like that. Pit ponies.” With a nod to Sedirae, he readies himself while the other swordsmen licks his lips and finds a more hunched and aggressive posture, waiting for the signal.

Aximand takes up where Abaddon left off, “They're supposed to be some extinct animal originally brought over, then gene-bred to be capable of doing an enormous amount of work for their size. Strong, dependable, they got turned into a symbol of effort and hard honest work." He lapses into silence, an oddly distant glow appearing on his features as if he were no longer there. "By the end, they were just little status symbols, richer's pets." Aximand blinks, green eyes once again reawoken as he looks up, "If the Commander said something about one, it might be that he's looking for some of us that are willing to go to the extra effort. It's why none of the mourneval was chosen, it might be why Marr was.”

Targost blinks a few times, mulling it over as he takes a seat on the bench as a small white flash flickers from the top of the cage. Like lightning, Abaddon's blade sweeps out in a decapitating strike only to be parried away by both slashing sabers. Sedirae's quick slicing sweeps sets the First Captain on a path to sidestep and thrust down, trying to catch and fling a blade free. He was certainly stronger and more heavily built than his lithe opponent, not to mention almost a foot taller. But the blond-haired Luc kept his open mouthed shark-like grin as he lunges and slashes, bringing back memories of Cthonia's dark hollows and murderous underhives.

“If you think that's all there is too it, Aximand,” Serghar says quietly enough that it was nearly impossible to hear over the clamor of clashing steel, “explain why he doesn't trust the ship or anyone on it. Something's here, some pest, a xeno presence I have no doubt. It'll get worse.” He taps his teeth together, muttering, “Davin wounded him. It died for it, but it still did more than nearly two hundred years of fighting. I'm not embarrassed that he chose some horse to be a symbol, it's no different than Sanguinius's lion pelt, his rogarou, or Abaddon's parade garb. But he wanted a live one, to the exclusion of all else. And he expected to find it here... not everything is as it seems, Aximand. Remember that.”

The mourneval captain remains seated next to him, still dressed in his ceremonial garb from the recent meeting, eyes following the match in progress. “Leman-” Aximand starts, then thinks better of it. Biting his lips, something flashes across his mind that remains unsaid.

Targost just looks over to regard the captain for a moment. With a short sigh, he pats the captain's shoulder. “I wish we could talk about this like we did in the lodge. But it's... gone, now. I still hope I can talk with you in confidence, my friend. After all, I know I an count on you. You know why we're fighting this war, after all.” A quiet pat, and he goes back to watching as Abaddon's cleaving hammerstrike snaps one of Sedirae's sabers in half.

“All we have to do is find Erebus then.” Aximand says perhaps a little more composed and reserved than moments before.

“That's it.” Targost grins as he watches with a smirk. “Abaddon's got him in five.”

Aximand holds up three fingers. And a moment later, smiles as the match concludes.