Threads of Power

by Dova_king17

Summary:

Just after Horus Luprecal, first amongst equals is named war master, the Emperor sends all 18 brothers on an extremely important mission to hunt for an ancient chaos undivided artifact, older than the war in heaven. called the Crown of the Eightfold Path. chasing it through the warp, it escapes, breaking in orbit and plummeting to an alternate earth, 200 years ago. the eight shards buried deep beneath the rock and oceans around the world, infecting it slowly. years later on this unnamed earth...quirks bloomed.

Chapter 1: Shattered Dawn

Summary:

Just after Horus Luprecal, first amongst equals is named war master, the Emperor sends all 18 brothers on an extremely important mission to hunt for an ancient chaos undivided artifact, older than the war in heaven. called the Crown of the Eight-Fold Path. chasing it through the warp, it escapes, breaking in orbit and plummeting to an alternate earth, 200 years ago. the eight shards buried deep beneath the rock and oceans around the world, infecting it slowly. years later on this unnamed earth...quirks bloomed.

Chapter One: The Shattered Dawn

The Warp screamed.

It was not the scream of men or beasts, but of reality itself, stretched taut like a drumskin, echoing with madness as the fleets of the Legiones Astartes surged after the Emperor’s command. Entire armadas of crimson, cobalt, gold, and iron hulls ploughed through the tides of unreality. Their prows bore the aquila, their banners the colors of their gene-sires, and at their hearts beat engines capable of powering countries.
At the forefront, on the bridge of his flagship Photep, Magnus the Red stood unmoving, one great hand wrapped around his staff of obsidian and crystal. His single cyclopean eye burned with psychic fire as he followed the thread — a beacon, raw and malignant, pulling at his mind like a fishhook embedded in flesh.

“It is close,” Magnus said, voice deep and calm despite the roil of the Immaterium. “The artifact seeks refuge… but the Warp itself denies it.”

Behind him, Roboute Guilliman’s armored bulk shifted, arms crossed over his ceramite breastplate. His voice was steady as ever, but edged with suspicion.

“Or it is guiding us into a trap. Even Father treads carefully with relics such as this.”

The others gathered in their own ways. Horus Lupercal leaned against the tactical hololith, all warrior-charm and steel eyes. Sanguinius stood at the viewport, white wings haloed by the Warp’s glow, his expression unreadable save for a faint sorrow. Perturabo scowled as if every second of delay was an insult, muttering about containment procedures as he wipes books off of a table and covers it in blueprints, his analytical mind already coming up with thousands of possible ways to contain the artifact. The five of them gathered in the command room of the Photep.

Then reality broke.

The scream of the Warp rose to a crescendo as the artifact, vast, unknowable, burning with all four Powers of Ruin tore a rent in dimensions. Across a thousand decks alarms wailed, ships lurched, and astropaths clawed their eyes out as the rift snapped shut. The relic was gone, hurled into a place beyond charted stars.

Magnus collapsed to one knee. Blood dripped from his nose, his third eye searing with pain.
“It is through,” he rasped. “Cast into another realm. A younger reality. I… I see it dimly. Not our galaxy. Not our time. But the wound remains. We can follow.”

“Then we pursue.” Horus’s words cut like a blade. “Father commanded. The Emperor’s will is not questioned.”
And so the fleets surged into the breach.

Two Centuries Earlier — Terra Unknown

The artifact burned as it fell. Across the skies of a world untouched by the Imperium, a comet split into eight jagged fragments, each one burying itself into mountains, oceans, cities yet unborn. With them came change.
A child in China a year later started glowing, years later more and more similar phenomena of children gaining super power like abilities, the world was sent into turbulence as humanity evolved.
Humanity called it the Dawn of Quirks.

U.A. High — Two Hundred Years Later

The entrance exam was done. The great training grounds still smoldered with scars of combat, with shattered robots and broken concrete. Students filed back to their dormitories with trembling excitement, victories and failures alike gnawing at their hearts.
Izuku Midoriya sat on a medical bed, hands still shaking and bandaged from the first ever use of One For all, his mind replaying every moment of the battle. The roar of One For All through his bones. The way Uraraka had smiled at him after the zero-point collapse. For the first time, he dared to believe he had taken a step toward his dream.

Above, unseen by all, the stars shifted. A darkness deeper than any villain’s ambition coiled on the horizon.
In the void beyond the moon, reality split, and the fleets of the Imperium emerged.
Battle-barges and strike cruisers unfurled in silent ranks, their presence blotting constellations from the night sky. Great vox-horns boomed words no human on Earth could hear. Legions of Space Marines armed for crusade stirred from their holds. The Primarchs gathered at the edge of the world, gazes fixed on the blue-green sphere below.

“The shards are here,” Magnus whispered, voice quiet yet full of power. “And the planet sings with them.”

Sanguinius’s wings rustled softly. “A world of innocents, unknowing of what they carry. Do we bring salvation… or damnation?”

Horus steps up next to his brother, war-fire gleaming in his eyes. “Whichever it is, brother… we are already too late to turn back.”

The Hunt had begun.

Chapter 2: Council of Titans

Summary:

The primarchs are now in system, now they must discuss how to move forward

Notes:

second chapter obviously, after this chapter I will make them longer, any comments, questions or concerns can be asked, I'm a new writer so any help is appreciated. and if its needed I can make a dossier page on the primarchs and some of the 40k characters who will be featured heavily in this story.

Chapter Two: Council of Titans

The Phalanx hung like a second moon above the blue planet.

The battle-station dwarfed even the greatest of voidcraft, its armored hull ablaze with warding runes and golden aquilae. Once the pride of Rogal Dorn’s VII Legion, it now served as the bastion for all 18 brotherhoods of Primarch and Legion gathered for this most alien of crusades. Entire fleets moored themselves to its titanic bulk; gun decks larger than cities waited silent, their wrath chained.

Within the strategium, the sons of the Emperor assembled.

The chamber stretched like a cathedral of steel and light, vaulted high enough for Titans to stride within. Holo-projectors painted the world below in shifting blues and greens, its oceans glittering with innocence. Around the grand circular table stood the Primarchs, armored giants, each radiating a force of will that could shatter nations.

Magnus began the council, his voice resonant.
“The artifact is broken. Eight shards, buried deep within this world. Each one radiates with the touch of the Ruinous Powers. This planet breathes them, its people already twisted by their echoes. What they call Quirks are nothing less than the fragments’ corruption upon their genome.”

A murmur rippled across the gathering.

Perturabo slammed a gauntlet against the table, the sound echoing like thunder. “Then the solution is simple. Orbital bombardment. Glass the planet, scour the shards, and deny Chaos its plaything.”

“Always the blunt instrument, brother,” Fulgrim replied, voice silky, almost mocking. “Do you not see the artistry of this world? These mortals have woven powers into themselves, not as slaves to the Warp, but as—” he gestured at the hologram, a dancer admiring his stage— “an expression. They have survived two centuries with these gifts. To destroy them outright would be wasteful.”

“Wasteful?” Angron’s growl shook the chamber. “They are weak cattle. Not warriors. Not worth our time.”

Konrad Curze’s laugh is sharp and bitter. “Oh, they are very worth our time. I have seen their cities in the dark. I have heard their cries. This world teeters on a knife’s edge of fear and hope. All it needs is a push… one way or another.”

“Enough,” Horus snapped, his voice iron. His hands gripped the railing before him, knuckles pale. “We are not here to debate artistry or slaughter. Father commanded restraint. We will not bring the might of the Legions down upon an innocent world unless there is no other path.”

Sanguinius stepped forward, wings catching the starlight. His tone was calm, but carried the gravity of judgment. “I will go. If diplomacy is to be sought, let it be with one they cannot mistake for a monster. My wings may inspire fear, but they may also inspire reverence. Let me walk among them first.”

“Not alone,” Guilliman countered. “This is not a mission for one. We must show unity, but not force. I will accompany you — to advise, and to prepare the groundwork for diplomacy, should it succeed.”

Magnus inclined his head. “I must come down to the surface as well, but I am not a diplomat, I need to get closer to track the shards of the broken crown. It cannot wait”

Horus leaned on the railing, eyes alight with flame. “I shall lead the diplomacy, as Warmaster of the Imperium of Man, it is my right and duty to bring both an outstretched hand and warning for those who seek to fight us.”

Ferrus Manus’ voice was like a grinding stone. “And who shall command the Legions while you four play at words? The fleets cannot linger in idle orbit.”

“I will.” Dorn’s eyes never left the projection of the planet. “The Phalanx is my charge, and from here I will marshal our strength. No fleet movement, no planetary defense shall stir without my word.”

The Lion’s gaze was cold, unreadable as ever. “Do not underestimate them. If these people wield powers gifted by the shards, then their champions may be more dangerous than their armies. We should dispatch scouts, covert operatives, to test the measure of their strength.”

“Agreed,” Vulkan rumbled. “But let them be scouts, not butchers. We are not conquerors here — not unless forced.”

The council fell to silence for a moment. Eighteen demigods stood arrayed, each carrying the weight of a galaxy. Below them, unaware of their judgment, the planet turned. Cities pulsed with life, heroes laughed and trained, villains plotted in the shadows.
Eight shards lay hidden, and the fate of two worlds balanced on them.

Finally, Dorn’s voice broke the stillness.
“It is decided. Sanguinius, Horus, Guilliman — you will descend as envoys. The rest will remain aboard the Phalanx or their fleets, prepared but restrained. We will not invite war… but we will not shy from it either.”

Sanguinius bowed his head. “Then let us see what kind of world this truly is.”
The Angel’s wings unfurled, white against the starfield. The first step of contact had been chosen.

Chapter 3: Angels at the Gate

Summary:

UA, once the beacon of the hero industry, now holds council with three of the emperors greatest sons...elsewhere, where shadows lurk, other players take notice..

Chapter Three: Angels at the Gate

The council had ended, but the air aboard the Phalanx still hummed with unspoken tension. The Primarchs drifted to their duties — some to their fleets, others to their brooding solitude — yet three lingered, their purpose decided.

Sanguinius, serene and radiant, strode beside Roboute Guilliman’s measured step. Horus Lupercal leading the march, the wolfish smile never far from his lips, his cloak stirring with each stride. Behind them marched their chosen honor guards, the finest of their Legions, and at their head the First Captains themselves: Ezykeyle Abaddon of the Luna Wolves, Saul Invictus of the Ultramarines, and Raldoron of the Blood Angels.

From the hangar decks of the Phalanx, thunderhawks screamed into the void, black and white, cobalt and gold, crimson and ivory. The planet below grew vast, oceans and continents filling the viewports. None of the mortals beneath had ever seen such craft, nor dreamed of their scale.
The thunderhawks broke the atmosphere, contrails blazing across the morning sky of Japan.

At U.A. High, the faculty gathered in confusion. Sirens had blared not from the city, but from the very campus itself, linked to government warnings of unidentified orbital objects. Principal Nezu stood at the forefront of the courtyard, his sharp mind already racing, every scenario catalogued. Beside him, Aizawa’s scarf drifted in the breeze, his eyes narrowed against the sunlight. All Might, thinner than the legend would prefer, stood in his false strength, ready to defend if need demanded.

Students spilled into the windows of Class 1-A, hushed voices trading nervous speculation. Midoriya clutched his notebook, scribbling half-legible theories: massive crafts… military formation… not villains, not exactly… aliens? Gods?

Then the shadows fell.

Three thunderhawks descended like mountains given wings, engines shaking the earth, trees bending in their wash. Their armored flanks bore sigils no human on Earth could recognize: the snarling wolf of Luna, the upside down Omega symbol of Ultramar, the angel’s tear of Baal. The great craft settled into the courtyard, their ramp doors hissing open with the weight of destiny.

And from them came giants.

Space Marines advanced in perfect lockstep, their ceramite armor gleaming under the sun, each the size of three men, each radiating the aura of war incarnate. Weapons of impossible make hung at their sides, though they held them at rest. Abaddon marched at the head of the Luna Wolves, black topknot swaying as his golden eyes scanned the humans with cold appraisal. Invictus strode like a king in cobalt, every gesture precise. Raldoron of the Blood Angels was silent, but his crimson blade hung heavy at his hip, and his men carried themselves like statues of living myth.

Then the Primarchs came.

Horus descended first, his presence overwhelming. The wolf-pelt across his shoulders caught the wind, his laughter loud and warm, but beneath it was the weight of a conqueror’s confidence. He raised a hand in greeting, as though meeting equals rather than insects.

Sanguinius followed, wings unfurled in dazzling white, his face radiant yet sorrowful, the kind of beauty that drew gasps from students and teachers alike. Even those who trembled felt compelled to look upon him.
And Guilliman came last, his blue-and-gold armor gleaming with the authority of a statesman. His eyes swept across U.A., measuring, calculating.

Silence fell across the campus. No villain attack, no sports festival, no quirk demonstration had ever produced such awe. Here were beings beyond All Might, beyond Endeavor, beyond imagination.

Principal Nezu stepped forward, his composure unbroken despite the titans before him. “Welcome,” he said, voice calm though his heart raced. “You’ve come a very long way, I imagine.”

Horus’s smile widened. “Sharp little creature. Yes… a very long way indeed. And for a purpose that may matter more to your kind than you yet know.” His voice rolled like thunder, charming and terrible in equal measure.

All Might shifted, his towering frame suddenly small beside these gods. “If you’ve come in peace, then let us hear your intentions. If not…” His smile faltered only a moment before returning. “You’ll find us ready.”

Sanguinius bowed his head gently, wings folding. “Peace is our aim. We bring warning, not conquest. This world is precious — but it carries a danger within it, one you cannot yet see.”

Guilliman stepped forward then, speaking with the clarity of command. “We will not dictate your fate. But understand this: there are powers far greater than you can comprehend moving through your world. If we do nothing, you will all be consumed. If we act in haste, you may see us as conquerors. We seek instead… allies.”

The words hung heavy.

Students whispered, wide-eyed. Uraraka clutched Iida’s arm, whispering, “Allies? With them?” Bakugo sneered, fists clenched, muttering, “Tch. What the hell even are they?” Midoriya scribbled furiously, his eyes darting between wings, armor, and symbols, already piecing theories no one else dared.

Nezu’s eyes glimmered, weighing every syllable. “Then, my lords,” he said, his tone sharp as a knife’s edge, “perhaps we should discuss what this danger is… and what role you intend our world to play in your crusade.”

Horus smiled, teeth bright in the sunlight. “Ah… a conversation worth having.”

And so, under the eyes of children training to be heroes, the sons of the Emperor walked upon the soil of a new world. The shards whispered beneath mountains and seas, Chaos stirred in its cage, and the first words of alliance — or doom — were spoken in the halls of a school.

The courtyard trembled in silence after the giants had spoken. Nezu’s ears flicked, catching the rhythm of breaths all around him — awe, terror, calculation. The children clung to every motion, as if a twitch of these beings’ fingers might alter the world forever.

It was Nezu who broke the silence, voice sharp as a needle.
“Then let us move this conversation inside. My students may train for heroics, but they need not bear the weight of diplomacy just yet.”

Horus inclined his head, smiling broadly. “Wise. Lead on, little one.”
-----------------------
The faculty room of U.A. had never felt so small.

Chairs had been reinforced hastily — Raldoron stood regardless, crimson armor gleaming, hands resting on the pommel of his sword. Abaddon of the Luna Wolves leaned against the wall, dark eyes scanning every corner like a predator caged among prey. Saul Invictus, silent and immense, remained near Guilliman’s shoulder, the perfect extension of his primarch’s will.

The three Primarchs themselves dominated the space. Horus lounged with the relaxed grace of a ruler confident of his supremacy, but every smile was a test. Guilliman sat straight-backed, hands folded as though chairing a senate. Sanguinius alone seemed at ease, his wings folded behind him, his compassionate eyes meeting each mortal’s gaze without judgment.

Nezu sat at the head of the table, tiny paws folded. All Might loomed at his side, arms crossed in his towering frame of muscle and bravado. Aizawa slouched, scarf coiled, his eyes flicking between the guests. Present too were Vlad King, Midnight, and a few senior staff — each radiating nerves barely suppressed.

Nezu spoke first. “You’ve called this world ‘precious.’ Yet you speak of danger. Explain yourselves.”

Guilliman’s voice carried clarity like a blade drawn across silk.
“Two centuries ago, fragments of a relic from beyond your reality fell upon this world. Each shard carries the taint of Chaos — a corruption that devours and twists all it touches. Your… ‘quirks’ are the consequence. Powers not born of natural evolution, but of exposure to forces no mortal should wield.”

Murmurs rippled. Midnight’s brow furrowed, Vlad King clenched his jaw, and Aizawa’s stare sharpened dangerously. All Might, however, stood unmoved, his smile forced but steady.
“And what,” All Might asked, “would you do with such knowledge? Destroy quirks? Destroy us?”

Before Guilliman could answer, Horus stood up slowly, his steely eyes observing the heroes
“Destroy you? No. What would that serve? You are children of this world, no more guilty for your gifts than a man born strong or swift. What we seek are the shards themselves. Left unchecked, they will draw worse things than us to your doorstep. Gods of madness, whose hunger makes villains and tyrants look like children’s play.”
His voice was rich, coaxing, and dangerous. Even as he soothed, his eyes lingered on All Might, testing, weighing.

Sanguinius’s wings rustled softly as he spoke, his tone like balm.
“We have no desire for conquest. If we meant harm, your cities would already lie in ruin. We seek to work beside you — to guide, to contain the threat before it grows beyond both our powers to resist.”

Nezu’s whiskers twitched. “And if we refuse?”

The question hung sharp as a blade. Students whispered behind closed doors, straining to catch echoes.
For a moment, silence reigned. Abaddon’s fingers tightened on his weapon’s hilt. Invictus’s stare was unreadable. Raldoron shifted subtly, crimson eyes flicking to his primarch.

Then Guilliman spoke, his voice measured, unwavering.
“Then we will still act. For the fate of more than your single world rests upon those shards. But… we would rather act with you, not against you. Cooperation is our chosen path.”

Aizawa’s voice broke through, dry and sharp. “So what you’re saying is: work with you, or you’ll do it anyway. Some choice.”

Horus chuckled, wolfish teeth flashing. “A better choice than most ever receive when gods walk into their halls.”
The tension thickened, every word a duel. Yet beneath it, a bridge was being built — precarious, narrow, but real.

Nezu leaned forward, eyes glittering with a mind racing far faster than a super computer. “Then let us begin with honesty. If these shards are as dangerous as you claim… then we must know where they lie. Tell us, and we may yet decide if our paths can walk together.”

The Primarchs exchanged glances — wings, armor, and diplomatic smiles framed in the cramped faculty chamber of a school. The first true negotiation between the sons of the Emperor and the heroes of a new world had begun.

And outside, unseen, in the shadowed alleys of Kamino, whispers stirred. A man without a face — All For One — raised his head to the stars, and felt something in his soul tremble, a grin spreading across his ruined face.
The hunters had arrived.

Notes:

Saul Invictus is the name for the first captain of the ultramarines during the great crusade from what I could find, but the information about him is sparce at best so I will take some liberties with his character, but he probably won't be seen much unlike other first captains like Abaddon and Raldoran.

Chapter 4: The Brighter the Light, the Darker the Shadow

Summary:

with the heroes scrambling to assess the primarchs and what they want, the other player is revealed

Chapter Four: The brighter the light, the darker the shadow

The air in the faculty chamber grew thick with words and unspoken weight. The three Primarchs sat like towering statues of myth, and yet their presence was alive, dynamic — three visions of power forged by the Emperor Himself.

Guilliman leaned forward, the table groaning faintly under his armored weight. “The shards cannot remain where they are. Already they shape your world in ways you cannot fully comprehend. If left untended, they will become beacons. The predators of the warp will find them, and when they do… they will not stop at your cities or your nations. They will devour your entire world.”

Aizawa’s eyes narrowed. “And you expect us to just… hand them over?”

“No,” Sanguinius said, his wings folding gently as he looked at the tired-eyed man with something like respect. His voice was calm, radiant, and filled with an optimism that seemed to brighten the room. “We expect to seek them with you. To explain, to share what we know. Not every path must be fire and conquest. We believe this world has the strength to walk beside us, if it so chooses.”

The faculty exchanged glances. Nezu’s gaze sharpened, reading every flicker of expression. Midnight frowned, her usual confidence dulled by the sheer gravity of the conversation. Even All Might, pillar of their society, seemed for once… smaller.

It was Horus who leaned forward, breaking the silence. His voice rolled like thunder contained, each syllable deliberate, undeniable.
“You have courage — all of you. I see it in the way you look at us, even knowing what we are. But courage alone will not protect you. You must understand: we do not come as conquerors. We come as hunters, chasing a beast that slipped your way. If we fail, your world will burn. If we succeed, your people will live to decide their own fate. That is all.”

His eyes swept the room, catching each gaze and holding it. Not a tyrant’s glare, but the presence of one who had commanded men across the stars and bent them to his will.
Nezu drummed his small paw on the table, thoughtful. “Very well. If what you say is true, then we have no choice but to hear more. But this will not be one-sided. If we are to cooperate, then you will share your knowledge with us — of these shards, of this… warp you speak of. We will not fight shadows with blindfolds.”

Guilliman inclined his head, a faint smile ghosting across his lips. “A fair demand. You will have your knowledge. And in return, we will need guides, scholars, and yes — your heroes. The shards are not inert. They will resist. Already they may have chosen vessels among your people.”

At that, unease rippled through the faculty. The thought that villains — perhaps even heroes — might carry within them fragments of something far older and darker was a weight none had anticipated.
All Might rose to his full height, his smile shining though his eyes burned with fierce resolve. “If danger threatens this world, then we will face it. With you, if your words hold truth. Against you, if they do not.”

For the first time, Horus’s smile softened, genuine respect glinting in his eyes. “Spoken like a true warrior. Then let us see if words can indeed bind our paths, All Might.”

Sanguinius placed a hand lightly upon the table, his golden hair catching the light as his wings shifted. “Hope is never wasted if it sparks unity. I see greatness in this world. Let us nurture it, not smother it.”

The tension eased, if only slightly. Nezu sat back, whiskers twitching with thought, and finally nodded. “Then let us consider this the first step. We will cooperate — cautiously. I will convene with government officials, but for now… we will extend our trust. Tentatively.”

Guilliman rose smoothly, Saul Invictus following without a word. Horus stood with a predator’s grace, Abaddon shadowing him like a dark reflection. Sanguinius rose last, Raldoron’s crimson presence silent but steady.

The meeting had ended — but history had just begun.

The doors of U.A. opened, and the world changed.

Students gasped as the three Primarchs emerged into the sunlight, their honor guards following like titans of living steel. The Luna Wolves in ash-white, their black trim stark as night; the Ultramarines in shining cobalt, disciplined to the last; the Blood Angels in crimson, radiant as burning dawn.
The ground seemed to quake beneath their march. Teachers and students alike stood transfixed as legends from another galaxy strode across their campus. Wings unfurled, armor gleamed, and banners swayed in the wind.

Midoriya’s pen scratched furiously in his notebook, his eyes wide and shining. They’re… they’re like All Might, but… more. Gods among men. Heroes from the stars.

Bakugo grit his teeth, fists trembling, rage and awe mingling as one. Damn it… they’re even bigger than him. Even bigger than All Might…

Uraraka whispered, barely audible, “They’re beautiful…”

And All Might himself stood at the edge of the courtyard, watching silently, the smile fixed on his face while his heart wrestled with a storm.
The Primarchs marched through U.A., each step etching itself into memory. They had come not as conquerors, not yet as saviors, but as something far greater than myth.

The dawn of a new age had begun.

MEANWHILE

Far from the shining halls of U.A., beneath layers of concrete and shadow, a chamber stirred with power.
The man who ruled this world from its darkness sat upon his throne of steel and cables, his form vast yet indistinct beneath the veil of his mask. Tubes fed into his ruined flesh, life sustained not by mercy but by dominance. His voice was calm, deliberate, each word soaked in inevitability.
“All of them, here…” His laugh was low, a hum like the crackle of distant thunder. “How fascinating. So Father sends His children at last. The sons of the Emperor… chasing after what I already possess.”
On the stone table before him lay four objects. Not jewels, not crowns, not weapons. Shards — jagged, glimmering with inner corruption, each one pulsing with its own rhythm. One bled with Khorne’s hunger, another seethed with Nurgle’s rot, a third whispered with Tzeentch’s lies, and the fourth shimmered with the lure of Slaanesh.

Together they pulsed, a broken heartbeat of something far greater. The Crown of the Eightfold Path, shattered two centuries ago when it fell into this world. The very relic that had once raised Be’lakor — the First Damned — into daemonhood beyond measure.

All For One’s hand hovered over them, his fingers trembling with restrained ecstasy. “Four of eight. Half the crown reclaimed. Already, they empower me beyond mortal limits. Already, I am more than these offworld titans suspect.”

He leaned back, tubes hissing. The world above bustled with children and heroes, dreaming of hope. None of them understood. None of them remembered. But he remembered.
The night two centuries ago when fire streaked the sky. The whispers that sang in his bones as the shards buried themselves in the earth. How he had sought them, one by one, and bent their will to his own. How he had crafted his dominion of quirks not merely as evolution, but as empire.
He was not merely a villain. He was this world’s first king. its dark god.
And now the Emperor’s sons had come to contest him.

A pale figure approached the throne, bowing low. Shigaraki, brittle hands twitching, voice cracking. “Master… the lights in the sky. The world is afraid. They say… gods have come.”

All For One’s laugh echoed through the chamber, deep and terrible.
“Not gods, my child. Pretenders. Puppets carved from flesh and will. They seek what is already mine. They think themselves hunters, but they are prey.”

His hand rested upon the shards, and the chamber dimmed, the air choking with the raw taste of the Warp. Shigaraki staggered back, clutching his throat. Feeling something that cannot exist, whispers in the dark, calling for blood.
“When the eight shards are whole, I will finish what Be’lakor began. Chaos undivided will not crown a servant… but me. And when that day comes, not Terra, not the Warp, not even their Golden Emperor will deny me.”

The shards pulsed brighter, as though answering their master’s oath.

All For One raised his head, his ruined face hidden but his voice radiant with hunger.
“Let them come. Let them march their Legions across my skies. This is my world. And I will show them what it means to steal from a god.”

Notes:

yes, all for one and the league will be the big bads...for now

if people want me to make a dossier page describing the crown, the primarchs and other names I will drop that people not familiar with 40k won't recognize so it limits the amount of foreknowledge needed to enjoy the story I can

Chapter 5: The World Stares Into the sun

Summary:

The world demands answers, the Primarchs oblige, heavy with exposition and dialogue

Notes:

Longest chapter yet, keyword yet

Chapter Five: The World Stares Into the Sun

The world had not slept in days.

Since the night the second moon had risen — a vast, glimmering fortress that eclipsed stars and moved against the heavens with purpose, with intelligence — every nation had been scrambling. Armies stood on alert. Satellites strained their optics. Politicians demanded answers, and no one could give them. Some whispered of gods; others of invaders. The sky itself mocked all human power by bearing a leviathan that was not of Earth and yet was built for humanity’s hand.

Tokyo had become the center of the storm.

The U.A. campus, once a place of learning and youthful training, was transformed into something else entirely: a fortress-diplomatic compound. Its gates had been sealed and lined with ranks of soldiers, both JSDF and the newly arrived Imperial warriors. Banners of the Luna Wolves, Ultramarines, and Blood Angels hung beside Japan’s flag, fluttering against the late morning wind. At the center plaza, a massive dais had been constructed, framed with vox-casters, pict-recorders, and cameras from every major news outlet on Earth.

By dawn, the place was a frenzy. Reporters jostled against barricades, their voices rising in a hundred tongues. What are they? Why are they here? Do they come in peace? Political delegations filled the reserved seating near the front — the Prime Minister of Japan, flanked by advisors, Nezu perched on a high-backed chair with a calculating gleam in his eyes, and the top heroes of the nation arranged like a living shield. All Might, no longer bearing one for all yet still above all others even with embers, sat stiff with tension, hands folded. Endeavor radiated a smoldering pride, his flames hissing faintly despite protocol forbidding them indoors. Hawks lounged with studied ease, though his wings twitched like a bird sensing a predator.

Star and Stripe stood taller than most men in the room, arms folded across her chest, her gaze fixed on the great doors at the end of the hall. To her, the situation was simple: judge if these beings are a threat, and if so, find a way to kill them.

Every camera was trained upon the great golden doors that had been mounted at the far end of the campus hall, newly forged by artisans of the Imperium in a single night. They gleamed like the gates of myth, embossed with sigils and aquilas none present could recognize. Behind them, the world waited for gods.
The air shifted.

It was not sound, nor light, nor any physical tremor. It was the weight of presence, the pressure of inevitability, as though the planet itself had noticed what approached. The guards stiffened. Some reporters gasped without knowing why.

The doors opened.

They did not creak or grind; they parted as if compelled by reverence itself. Through them came the first honor guard — warriors in burnished plate of ivory and storm-grey, bearing crested helms and standards of the Luna Wolves. Their tread shook the floor like the measured beat of drums. At their head walked Abaddon of the Mournival, black hair tied back, his face carved from obsidian resolve.

And behind them, the First Primarch stepped forth.

Horus Lupercal.

He was not merely tall. He was the measure of a man perfected, towering nearly twice the height of All Might, his frame clad in armor the color of storm-wrought steel and the pale gold of the Imperium. His face was bare, his expression carved into hard nobility, but his eyes glimmered with something alive, magnetic, a force that pulled attention and held it. His every step carried the weight of command, and yet his smile — brief though it was — melted fear into fascination.

Reporters surged forward, cameras flashing madly. The very air seemed to bow to his stride.
At his flanks, more Luna Wolves advanced, forming a cordon of ivory and grey. Their bolters gleamed under the hall’s lights.

Then came the next.

The blue of his armor was so deep it seemed to drink the light, chased with the white of marble and the gold of lawgiver’s laurels. His face was stern, calculating, as though he measured every inch of the room and every soul within it. He held no weapon, yet his very bearing was one.

Roboute Guilliman, Primarch of the Ultramarines.

At his side strode Saul Invictus, his First Captain, helm clipped to his belt, his face scarred but his bearing unshakable. The Ultramarines behind them moved in precise formation, every step in lockstep, every line perfect. They were soldiers, but they were also an idea: the image of order given form.

The world fell into silence.
Then the third entered, and silence became reverence.

He did not walk. He seemed to glide, though his boots touched stone. His hair was gold, his features too beautiful to belong to any mortal man, his wings — yes, wings, vast pinions of white that spread and shimmered like the dawn — arched above and behind him, casting the hall in radiance. His armor burned like the heart of a sunrise, chased with crimson and pearl.

Sanguinius, the Angel.

The Sanguinary Guard accompanied him, led by Raldoran, each one a golden warrior with winged helms and halberds that gleamed like lightning. They seemed not men but seraphs, visions conjured from faith. Some reporters gasped and clutched their chests. A few fell to their knees without meaning to.
Sanguinius smiled, and the tension in the room softened. It was as though spring sunlight had broken through a storm.

The three Primarchs advanced side by side, their guards fanning into position, the banners of their Legions unfurled above. Horus radiated command, Guilliman order, Sanguinius hope. Together, they seemed less like men than the embodiment of destiny.

The delegations shifted uneasily. The Prime Minister swallowed, his face pale. Nezu’s pen scratched furiously across a pad, his whiskers twitching with calculation. Endeavor’s flames flared a fraction, then dimmed as he realized how utterly small they seemed. Even All Might bowed his head.

At the front of the dais, the three Primarchs stopped. Horus took a step forward, and when he spoke, his voice rolled through the hall like a tide, every syllable measured, every word echoing with a charisma that commanded hearts.

“People of Terra,” he said, his words translated seamlessly through mechanisms no one could see, reaching every ear in perfect clarity. “We come not as conquerors, nor as tyrants. We come as your brothers — as sons of the same humanity that birthed you, as guardians of the same destiny that awaits you. We come because you are ours, and we are yours.”
The words struck like thunder. Silencing the chamber, yet everyone could only hold them for so long...

The storm broke the moment Horus’ opening declaration ended.

Reporters surged forward, voices tumbling in a hundred languages. Hands shot up. Flashbulbs strobed like lightning. The air was a cacophony of demands — Where did you come from? Who built the fortress over the moon? Why have you armed soldiers at your side? Do you bring war? Do you bring peace?
The moderators tried to impose order, but it was not them who silenced the storm.

It was Guilliman.

He raised one hand, fingers spread, and the gesture alone carried such command that voices faltered and fell. His voice, when it came, was not thunder like Horus’ but the measured cadence of law, every syllable cut with precision.

“We are here to answer. We are here to be understood. Ask, and you will know us. But know this first: we are not fleeting visitors. We are of you. We are mankind, born of its greatest heights, carrying its legacy beyond the stars. Your questions will not offend us — they will illuminate you.”

A murmur ran through the crowd, unsettled yet compelled. The first questions came from political figures, cautious and couched in diplomacy.

The Prime Minister of Japan, voice trembling yet steady in its purpose, asked: “You say you are of humanity. Then why now? Why not before? Why appear only when our world already faces a crisis?”

Horus leaned forward, his smile warm, his words a tide that wrapped around fear.
“Because all journeys have a beginning. Ours began in silence, far beyond the cradle of Terra. Now that silence is over. We come because it is time — because you are ready to be more than a fractured world clawing at survival. We come to lift you into what you were always meant to be.”

The response was thunderous applause from some, stony silence from others.
Then it was the heroes’ turn.

Endeavor stood, flames wreathing his shoulders despite the setting. His eyes narrowed.
“You claim to fight for humanity. Fine words. But what of power? These soldiers of yours…” He gestured to the Luna Wolves, to the Ultramarines in perfect lines, to the golden Sanguinary Guard. “…they look like armies. How do we know you haven’t come to rule us instead?”

A ripple of unease spread across the hall.

Guilliman’s jaw tightened, and his reply was clipped, exacting.
“Because power without stewardship is corruption. Because dominion without service is tyranny. We are not here to strip you of rule — your nations, your people, remain your own. We will defend, we will guide, but we will not usurp. You must understand — our existence is not conquest, but duty.”

That calmed some. It enraged others. The press fired more questions, but the moderator gestured to a raised hand in the delegation seats.

The woman who stood was taller than most men, her presence as commanding as any general. Blonde hair tied back, uniform crisp, her jaw set like granite. Cathleen Bate — Star and Stripe.

She didn’t wait for niceties. Her voice cut like a blade, carrying across the chamber without need for amplification.

“You speak of duty. You speak of being our guardians. Then I ask this plainly, and I’ll have a plain answer. If Earth burns — if humanity is on the brink, outmatched, outgunned — will you and your legions die with us to hold the line? Or will you save yourselves, retreat to your fortress in the sky, and let the rest of us burn?”

The question hung like a guillotine.

Reporters went silent. Politicians stiffened. The heroes shifted uneasily.

Sanguinius was the one who answered first.

He stepped forward, wings arching behind him, his eyes luminous with something more than mortal fire. His voice was soft, but it filled the hall as though spoken into every heart.
“Lady Cathleen, I cannot command what my brothers will choose. But I swear to you this — I will never abandon humanity. To the last drop of my blood, to the last beat of my heart, I will stand with you. For what is the worth of an angel who does not bleed with those he guards?”

For a moment, silence. Then a few reporters clapped, hesitant, but the sound grew, swelling with something like hope.

Horus placed a hand on his brother’s shoulder and then spoke, his voice steadier, iron where Sanguinius had been light.

“We were made to be your sword and shield. I will not lie to you — war demands sacrifice, and in sacrifice there is no guarantee of survival. But we do not abandon what is ours. Humanity is ours. We will fight until the void takes us, and even then, we will not turn away.”

The hall seemed to breathe again, yet Star and Stripe’s eyes flicked to Guilliman, sharp and unyielding. She knew a politician when she saw one.

Guilliman met her gaze without flinching.

“You ask if we will flee. I answer with this: I have led armies in a thousand wars beyond your imagining. I have buried brothers, sons, and friends on fields of ash. Never once did I abandon those who looked to me for protection. Not once. If humanity falls, then I fall with it. That is not a promise. That is law.”
Star and Stripe studied them all, her face unreadable. Then, at last, she gave a single, curt nod.

The hall exhaled.

But beneath the applause, beneath the words of hope and reassurance, an undercurrent remained. Fear. Doubt. The sense that these beings were not simply protectors — they were powers too vast to be measured, too alien in their perfection. Allies, perhaps. But gods were dangerous allies to have.

From the European bloc, Chancellor Weiss leaned forward, adjusting his spectacles with trembling fingers.
“You say your loyalty is to humanity. But what of sovereignty? What of law? Will your soldiers march at the command of the United Nations, or only at your own?”

Guilliman’s reply came like the stroke of a chisel against marble.

“Our soldiers obey the Emperor’s design and the Emperor’s alone. But understand this: His will is not tyranny. Where law preserves mankind, we uphold it. Where sovereignty serves the people, we defend it. We are not here to shatter your nations — only to shield them from what would devour them.”

Reporters scribbled furiously, mutters passing like wildfire.

Next came Hawks, lounging in his chair but eyes narrowed with hawklike focus.
“So — let me get this straight. You don’t answer to us, you don’t answer to governments, and your dad — this ‘Emperor’ — is somewhere up out who knows where. Sounds less like guardians, more like… well, a rival government with a god at the top. Why should we trust that you won’t decide one day that our laws are inconvenient?”

A hush followed. Even Endeavor’s flames dimmed, waiting to see how the giants would handle this open provocation.

It was Horus who answered this time, his grin sharp as a blade yet warm as the sun.
“Because trust is earned, not demanded. Judge us by what we do. Judge us by the foes we strike down, by the lives we save, by the wars we end. If the day comes when we break that trust — then you will not need to wonder. You will know. And you may cast your judgment then.”

Hawks leaned back, lips pursed, as though weighing every syllable.

Then, it was Mirko.

She stood like a coiled spring, white hair bristling, ears twitching, her scarlet eyes locked on the three demigods at the dais.
“Yeah, yeah, you sound real noble. But I’ve fought enough assholes with flowery speeches to know words are cheap. So let me ask you this — if one of you goes rogue, if one of these goddamn armies of yours decides humanity’s not worth it anymore, what then? Who’s gonna stop you?”

The hall went electric. It was the one question simmering at the edge of every heart — what checks gods?

Sanguinius bowed his head slightly, as though acknowledging the weight of her words. His wings folded close, his voice measured, sorrowful.

“Then it would fall to us — to brothers against brother, to legions against legion. We were not made blind to our own fallibility. Should one of us turn, the rest will stand against him. That is our oath, spoken long before this day.”

Mirko’s ears twitched, as though unconvinced, but before she could retort—

The air changed.

It began as a pressure, subtle at first, like the weight of a stormfront. Then it grew. Reporters faltered mid-word, pens trembling in their hands. A soundless vibration hummed in their skulls, an itch at the edge of thought. The lights overhead flickered once. Twice.

The massive doors at the rear of the chamber opened without a sound.

And through them stepped a being who made even Horus, Guilliman, and Sanguinius seem small.

A towering giant, skin the hue of crimson flame, one vast cyclopean eye burning with intellect so fierce it seared to look upon. His mane of hair fell in dark crimson locks, his frame draped in robes of impossible weave, embroidered with runes that writhed like living things. Every movement carried the weight of worlds, every step echoed with the resonance of another reality pressing close.
Behind him came his guard — warriors clad in ornate plate of crimson and gold, helms fashioned like horned beasts of Egyptian myth, halberds gripped in gauntlets inscribed with endless script. At their center strode a man in armor colored darker red than even the blood angels, helm crowned with curling horns. Ahriman.

The psychic pressure was unbearable. Some reporters clutched their temples. A few leaders gasped aloud, one fainted. Even hardened heroes stiffened, instincts screaming danger.
Whispers, gasps, mutters rolled like thunder.
“My God—”
“He’s not—he’s not human—”
“A devil—”
“No, more than a devil—”

Magnus the Red stopped before the dais, his height eclipsing even Horus. His single eye swept the room, and when it fell upon the gathered mortals, it was as though every secret thought was laid bare.
Silence crushed the chamber.

Then, softly, his voice — deep, resonant, carrying not just through the air but directly into the minds of all present.

“Questions of trust. Questions of loyalty. You fear abandonment. You fear betrayal. Yet you do not understand the truth.”

He turned, his gaze sweeping across the leaders, the heroes, the cameras.

“You see in my brothers the human face of what we are. And you ask — will they stand, will they die with you? I tell you this: they cannot abandon you, because they are you. Their blood is your blood. Their flesh is your flesh. We are humanity ascendant. To abandon you would be to carve out our own hearts.”

The words struck like fire and ice. Beautiful. Terrible.

Guilliman stiffened, the muscles in his jaw tight as steel. Horus’ grin was gone, his eyes shadowed. Sanguinius’ wings twitched, unease rippling through his every feather.

For Magnus had not entered as a diplomat. He had entered as a revelation.

And the world was not ready.

The chamber ruptured in chaos the moment Magnus’ final words fell.
Questions spat from every direction, overlapping into a storm of voices:
“Is that—what is he?!”
“Devil—mutant—abomination!”
“Why didn’t you tell us?!”
“Are there more like him?!”

Orders were barked, translators shouting over one another, security forces half-drawn between pointing weapons and freezing in awe. Even some Pro Heroes, veterans of battle, had their instincts triggered; Mirko dropped into a half-crouch, ready to spring, while Endeavor’s flames hissed to life unbidden, painting the walls in flickering orange.
The pressure of Magnus’ psychic aura thickened with the noise, his single eye narrowing, his brow furrowing as though perplexed by the pandemonium. To him, this was not intimidation — this was simple honesty, a truth revealed. But to the mortals before him, the effect was suffocating.

Magnus raised his hand, robes flowing like living flame.

“Silence! These questions are wasted breath. The artifact calls to me from beneath your soil, its resonance clear as the sun at dawn. All this—” he gestured to the assembly, his voice sharp with irritation, “—bureaucracy, these words upon words, when the danger grows with each passing moment—”

The uproar only worsened, now tinged with panic. Magnus’ height, his inhuman visage, the living light burning in his eye — to those who had never seen a Primarch, it was monstrous.

And at last, Horus moved.

The Warmaster rose smoothly from his seat, his towering presence cutting through the noise like a blade. With a clap of his gauntleted hands, the sound echoed like thundercrack, drawing every gaze.
“Brother.”

Magnus turned, his aura still pressing down like a stormfront. His single eye blinked once, owl-like, curious.
Horus grinned — but the grin was tight, sharp, lined with warning.
“You are terrifying them.”

Magnus’ brow furrowed, confusion plain.
“Terrifying? I only spoke the truth.”

Guilliman’s voice followed, calm but firm, as though guiding a wayward student.
“Magnus. Look at them. Their hearts race. Their bodies tremble. They do not see knowledge when you speak — they see a god who could unmake them with a thought. You must remember what you are to their eyes.”

Magnus blinked again, tilting his massive head like a child caught misbehaving without realizing it. His eye flickered across the mortals — the pale faces, the clutching hands, the heroes poised on edge. His lips parted as though only now realizing.
“…I did not mean—”

Sanguinius rose next, feathers rustling, his tone gentler still, a brother’s hand extended to soothe.
“None doubt your heart, Magnus. But you forget — you walk rarely among men. You live among books and warriors who will never fear you. These are not like our Astartes, nor our brothers. They are fragile, and your presence is a tempest to them.”

Magnus shifted uneasily, shoulders hunched despite his titanic frame, like a child suddenly aware of having broken something delicate. His voice softened, uncertain.
“I… only wished to cut through their endless circling. Time is wasted while the artifact—”
“—and in doing so, you nearly shattered their trust.” Horus cut in smoothly, though his smile returned now, warm as if rescuing his brother from embarrassment. “Magnus, you must let us temper your truths. Else you will burn the very bridges we are building.”

The great cyclops let out a low, rumbling sound — half-sigh, half-grumble. His eye darted from one brother to the next, then back to the mortals, who still stared at him with wide eyes. Finally, with visible reluctance, he allowed his aura to dim, pulling his psychic presence inward until the suffocating weight lifted. The chamber exhaled as one.

“…I did not mean to frighten them,” Magnus said at last, his voice almost sheepish, utterly at odds with his mountainous stature.

A laugh burst from Horus, genuine this time. He clapped Magnus’ colossal arm with the ease of a favored brother.
“Of course you didn’t. But you did. And that, little brother, is why you must listen to us before striding into the hall like a thunderbolt.”

Sanguinius’ smile was soft, forgiving, feathers lifting in relief.
“It is endearing, in a way. You see the truth so clearly, yet forget how your very being overwhelms. Do not worry, Magnus. They will come to see your heart, in time.”

Guilliman, though still stern, allowed a ghost of a smile.
“Just… perhaps next time, let us do the introductions.”

For the first time since he entered, Magnus looked… almost embarrassed. His titanic frame shifted, robes stirring as though he wished to fold inward, his single eye blinking quickly.
“…I will try,” he muttered.

The leaders, the heroes, the press — all still stared, the aftershocks of awe and terror buzzing in their veins. But in that moment, as the cyclopean giant looked abashed under his brothers’ scolding, a flicker of something else passed through the crowd.

Not just fear.

Recognition.

That even gods could be awkward.

Notes:

Magnus is by far my favorite Primarch, he will feature in this heavily, if you don't like it then bite me lol

Chapter 6: Pride and Prejudice

Summary:

Magnus has appeared, and with it division has been sowed, his inhuman appearance likens him to many of the more mutant like humans on this world, and with humans there is always shallow discrimination.

Notes:

my most divisive chapter yet, it deals with quirk discrimination, racism and hidden prejudice, showing that even the symbols of this world are not immune to those shallow hateful thoughts.

Chapter Six: Pride and Prejudice

For a long, trembling moment after Magnus dimmed his psychic aura, the chamber was silent, every breath drawn shallow. It was the American hero who broke it.
Star and Stripe shoved her chair back so violently it skittered across the polished floor, boots thundering as she marched forward. The towering woman radiated fury, her hair shaking with the force of her movements. She didn’t wait to be recognized, didn’t give a damn about protocol.

Her voice boomed like a cannon.

“So that’s it, huh? That’s what you’re parading around as ‘saviors’? This—” she jabbed a finger at Magnus, her glare sharp enough to cut steel, “—this red-skinned thing that looks like it crawled out of Hell’s own asshole?!”

Gasps rippled through the assembly, but she pressed on, voice rising.

“You call him ‘brother,’ you call him ‘Primarch,’ but all I see is a goddamn mutant freak. You expect us to trust something that looks like it eats people for breakfast? He walks in here, choking the air out of our lungs, staring down at us like cattle, and you want us to bow and grovel like he’s our goddamn king?!”

Her fists clenched, and her quirk power shimmered faintly, a golden heat haze spilling off her frame — tiny compared to Magnus’ earlier radiance, but blazing all the same.

“I’ve seen villains who look less terrifying than that! You know what you’re asking us to do? To hand over Earth’s future to something inhuman, something that doesn’t belong here, doesn’t belong with us! Don’t feed me that line about how he ‘meant no harm.’ Look at him! Look at that eye, like he’s peeling us apart just by breathing! You want to know what I see when I look at him? I see a nightmare that’s one bad day away from turning this whole planet into glass! And you want us to trust that?!”

Her voice cracked, snapping like a whip:
“Fuck that. Fuck him. Fuck all of this circus you’re trying to sell us.”

The room was dead silent. Delegates frozen. Security pale. Even the heroes, for all their courage, said nothing. The insults hung in the air like poisoned blades, sharp and unforgiving.
Magnus did not move. His single eye watched her, vast and unblinking, unreadable as the void. He seemed almost… confused. Hurt, perhaps, but only in the way a mountain is hurt by raindrops.

But his brothers—

Feathers stirred like a storm as Sanguinius stepped forward.

The angel’s wings snapped open with a sound like rolling thunder, their span filling the hall with gold and white. His radiant aura burst to life, burning in righteous fury, and for the first time the delegates felt something stronger than fear: awe.

His voice rang, not shouted but clear, carrying like the toll of a great bell.
“Enough.”

The word struck like a hammer, silencing even Star and Stripe. She froze in place, her fury suddenly weightless under the angel’s gaze.

“You dare.” Sanguinius’ eyes blazed, molten with hurt and anger. “You dare to stand before my brother — a son of the Emperor, who crossed the stars to safeguard your fragile world — and call him thing? Freak?” His wings flared wider, the light of them painting the walls. “Do you think your vulgar words give you strength? That spitting poison makes you bold? All I hear is the shrill cry of prejudice, the small voice of fear masking itself as bravery.”

His fist clenched at his side, his voice rising.
“Magnus is my brother. My blood. My kin. He has borne burdens you cannot fathom, fought wars beyond your comprehension, and still he comes not as conqueror, but as ally. And you — a supposed hero — hurl slurs as though hatred were a crown upon your head!”

He took one step forward, the floor groaning beneath his armored boots, his aura burning brighter.
“If you think his visage monstrous, then look at me. Look at us all. Do we not tower? Do we not burn brighter than men? Does that make us monsters in your eyes too?”

The angel’s voice softened then, though no less fierce, heavy with grief and pride.
“You speak of trust. But what trust can exist when you look upon the children of the Emperor and see only mutants? You dishonor not just my brother, but every sacrifice we have made for mankind.”

The chamber was still. Even the translators dared not breathe.

Sanguinius’ wings slowly folded, but his glare never left Star and Stripe.
“If you would stand as humanity’s shield, then learn to see beyond your fear. For if you cannot, then you are unworthy of the title of hero.”

Magnus’ single eye lowered, and for the first time since entering, the towering Primarch seemed smaller. His great shoulders sagged beneath the weight of her words, his long fingers tightening around the haft of his staff. When he spoke, his voice was quiet, almost uncertain.
“I… did not mean to frighten you.”

The words were soft, almost childlike from such a colossus, his tone stripped of all the thunder his psychic presence had carried. His eye flicked toward his brothers, then down at the mortals who shrank from him.
“I forget,” Magnus murmured, his voice heavy with shame. “I forget what I look like to those who have never walked among my sons. To me, this—” he gestured to his crimson skin, to the glowing eye “—is as natural as breath. I do not think on it. But you… you see only horror.”

The great cyclopean Primarch turned his gaze back to Star and Stripe, and for the first time, that burning eye was not fearsome, but wounded.
“I did not come to be your nightmare. I came to guard you from it.”

His sincerity, his confusion, made the silence heavier still.

But Star and Stripe was not cowed. Her jaw set, her voice harsh and cutting.
“Guard us? From what? You call it protection, I call it a leash. You say you forget what you look like—bullshit. You walk into a room choking us on your power, towering over us like some red devil, and then act all innocent when people flinch? You can dress it up in pretty words, but monsters always think they’re misunderstood. Always.”

The chamber quivered with the force of her voice. Delegates shifted uneasily, some nodding faintly despite themselves, others burying their faces in their hands.

That was when another voice cut through, sharp and commanding.

Horus.

The Warmaster rose from his seat at Sanguinius’ side, his black hair catching the light, his presence suddenly overwhelming the chamber like the rolling crash of an ocean wave.

“How Dare You.” His tone thundered like the cannon of a tank, and even Star stumbled a step. Horus’ eyes blazed, not with Magnus’ alien fire, but with the fury of a brother scorned.
“You dare spit such filth at my kin — at my brother — as though you were his judge? You measure him by the shape of his flesh, by the glow of his eye, and call it monstrous. Do you not hear yourself? You cloak your prejudice in bravado, but you are nothing more than a coward shouting at the dark, afraid of what you cannot understand.”

He stepped closer, each word rolling with charisma and iron.
“Magnus has bled for mankind in wars you cannot imagine, sacrificed more than your world has ever asked of you. And still, after all of it, he lowers his head to you. And you answer him with bile. If he is a monster, then what does that make you, who stands here spitting hatred at the man who came to save your life?”

Star’s teeth ground, but before she could spit back, another voice joined in — colder, sharper.

Roboute Guilliman had risen.

The primarch of the XIII towered with calm precision, his every movement deliberate, his face carved from stone. Where Horus burned, Guilliman froze.
“Let us set aside outrage and look at the facts,” Guilliman said, his voice steady but cutting, every syllable laced with judgment. “This woman — this ‘hero’ — has stood before us and revealed the truth of her heart: that she would judge by appearance alone. That her fear outweighs her reason.”

His blue eyes narrowed, ice over steel.
“Do you realize what you have done? In this hall of leaders, in front of nations that look to you as a symbol, you have called one of the Emperor’s sons a freak. You have insulted not just Magnus, but all of us. And worse — you have revealed to every soul here that you would rather cling to your fear than face reality.”

Guilliman’s voice hardened, louder now, reverberating through the chamber.
“Tell me, Cathleen Bate, ‘Star and Stripe’ — if humanity’s survival demanded that you fight beside a man with crimson skin, a single eye, or wings upon his back, would you refuse? Would you let the world burn because your pride cannot stomach the sight of difference?”

His hand slammed down upon the table, the sound like a gavel of judgment.
“Answer me, hero.”

The chamber was silent. Dozens of eyes fixed on Star, waiting. Some hopeful. Others horrified.
Her throat bobbed. For a heartbeat, she looked almost shaken. But her pride, her rage, her fear won out.

She sneered, her words dripping venom.
“You talk pretty, blue-boy. But when monsters show up, I don’t bow to them. I kill them.”

Gasps erupted. Delegates shouted in half a dozen languages. Security tensed. The insult hung in the air, sharper than any blade.

And Magnus’ great eye… closed. Not in anger. In sorrow.

The chamber tensed like a bowstring about to snap.

Horus’ knuckles whitened around the haft of Worldbreaker, the power maul humming with caged energy. Guilliman’s lips pressed into a thin, merciless line. Even Sanguinius’ feathers stirred with fury, golden light beginning to halo him as if divinity itself answered his wrath.

Magnus lowered his head, his staff trembling slightly, and whispered something inaudible.

Then—
“ENOUGH!”

The word cracked like thunder. In the same breath, a gust of force rolled across the dais. In a blur of motion, a towering figure in blue and red loomed behind Star and Stripe.

All Might.

In his full muscular form, he seized her by the scruff of her collar before she could flinch, lifted her bodily off her feet as if she weighed nothing, and slammed her into the polished marble floor with the controlled precision of a hammer strike. The impact rattled teeth and sent echoes booming through the chamber.

The delegates froze. The Primarchs stilled. Even Star gasped, winded, stunned not by the impact — but by who held her down.

Her idol. Her symbol.
“All Might—?!” she choked, but his voice drowned hers out.

“Silence, Cathleen!” His words roared like cannon fire, not just at her but at every corner of the chamber. His shadow stretched long across the room, as though he stood taller than any Primarch in that moment.
“You call yourself a hero? Then you should know this truth: hatred has no place in our hearts! A hero does not spit venom at those who are different! A hero does not sow fear where hope is needed most! Look at yourself — look at what you’ve become! You dishonor the very title you claim to uphold!”

Star’s eyes widened, a crack splitting her fury. She tried to speak, but his glare pinned her down harder than his grip.
“All your strength, all your sacrifice — worthless! Worthless if you wield them like a cudgel of prejudice instead of a shield of compassion!” His voice rose, reverberating like a lion’s roar. “We stand in a world already drowning in division. We cannot afford to sharpen that blade further. You speak of monsters? Hatred, Cathleen. Hatred is the true monster.”

The delegates sat in stunned silence, many swallowing hard, tears threatening at the corners of their eyes.

Star and Stripe’s lip trembled, her bravado faltering as the words of her idol — the one she modeled herself after — stripped her bare. “I… I just…”

All Might leaned closer, his eyes blazing with righteous fire.
“You forgot what it means to be a hero. Remember it now — or step aside.”

He released her, and she staggered, shoulders bowed, her entire body shrunken compared to the titan she had once seemed.
For the first time, the Primarchs looked at a mortal — not a Primarch, not an Emperor — and felt the weight of true respect.

Horus slowly released his grip on Worldbreaker, his storm of wrath dissipating. Sanguinius’ wings lowered, golden light dimming, though his jaw remained tight. Guilliman’s arms folded, his sharp gaze lingering on All Might as if recalculating everything he thought he knew about humanity.

Even Magnus lifted his eye, awe flickering in its crimson glow.
“You… you are no psyker,” he murmured, voice reverent. “And yet… your spirit blazes. Like the sun.”

All Might did not preen. He simply straightened to his full height, placed a hand over his chest, and bowed to Magnus.
“I may not be a god, or a son of one. I am only a man.” His voice softened, but carried the same force of conviction. “But as long as breath fills my lungs, I will stand against hatred — in all its forms.”

The silence that followed was heavier than any shout, for no one dared break the gravity of it.
Even Star… could not meet his eyes.

Notes:

this is an adult story, there will be tough topics shown, for even though the world of MHA tried to hide it, quirk discrimination and racism against mutants is prevalent

Chapter 7: The War council of Terra Secundus

Summary:

Now is time to start setting the stage for what will be the true meat of this story, this world will not just revolve around Japan, but the entire world

Chapter Seven – The War Council of Terra Secundus

The halls of U.A. High School had been transformed.

Where once the great auditorium had served as a place for student assemblies, sports ceremonies, and the occasional cultural festival, now it had become a war council chamber unlike anything the world had ever seen. The walls groaned under the sheer weight of machinery newly installed by the Mechanicum. Cogitators hummed, auspex relays blinked with cold green light, and vast projectors hung suspended like metal suns above the council floor. The banners of the Legiones Astartes — bold, terrible, proud — hung from the rafters, each bearing the sigils of the Primarchs who now walked this world.

And at the center of it all, dominating the chamber, was the war table.

It stretched nearly the entire length of the hall, a great slab of steel and obsidian inscribed with a living map of the Earth. Continents glowed with shifting tactical runes. The seas were marked with augur sweeps and fleet trajectories. The landmasses pulsed faintly, awaiting assignment of forces. Antarctica lay dim and unmarked, deliberately excluded.

Rows of seats had been arranged around the chamber for the mortals — Japan’s Top Ten Heroes, America’s Star and Stripe, foreign champions like Captain Celebrity, and the dozens of pro heroes who had gathered in response to this unprecedented alliance. The Big Three of U.A. sat together near the front, while Class 1-A and Class 1-B occupied the lower tiers of benches, their eyes wide and uncertain. Even the veteran teachers — Aizawa, Midnight, Vlad King, Cementoss, Present Mic, Snipe, and Thirteen — looked out of place, dwarfed by the towering post-human warriors who had claimed the center dais.
The air was thick. Heavy. One could almost taste the ozone in it, the pressure of power that made the bravest of pro heroes sweat beneath their collars.

For at the heart of the chamber stood the Primarchs.

Horus Lupercal, towering in black and gold, his broad shoulders wrapped in a wolf-pelt cloak. His eyes burned with the charisma of a born commander, one who had bent entire worlds to his will. Beside him stood Roboute Guilliman, clad in cobalt blue, a living statue of marble perfection whose every gesture radiated discipline and control. Near him lingered Sanguinius, his angelic wings half-furled, his presence almost painfully beautiful, his golden hair catching the light as if he himself were a flame given form. And finally, Magnus the Red — crimson-skinned, cyclopean, vast, swathed in arcane robes, his psychic aura crackling around him like a storm barely contained.

The four giants had entered together, but only Horus and Sanguinius carried the effortless grace of diplomacy. Guilliman’s stride was measured, like the beat of a drum. Magnus, however, had unsettled the room with every step, his psychic presence brushing against the minds of the mortals like the touch of a leviathan moving beneath dark waters.
Even the bravest heroes — Mirko, Endeavor, Star and Stripe — had flinched when Magnus’ single golden eye swept the hall.

Nedzu, perched on his custom seat at the edge of the war table, broke the silence with a polite cough. His beady eyes gleamed, as though this meeting were a kind of theater staged for his amusement. Yet beneath his genial smile lay a calculating mind that had found a natural partner in the crimson cyclops of Prospero.

“Esteemed leaders, heroes, and students,” Nedzu began, his voice amplified by hidden vox-picks. “Welcome to history. The council is now in session.”
The crowd stirred, chairs scraping, murmurs rising and falling.

Horus was the first to step forward, resting both hands upon the edge of the war table. His smile was easy, warm — almost disarming. “Mortals of Terra,” he began, his voice a thunderclap softened by velvet. “We come not as conquerors, nor as strangers. We are your kin. Your protectors. For though the stars may be our home, humanity remains our blood.”
It was a practiced line, but it landed well. Even the skeptical heroes found themselves leaning in.

Sanguinius moved to Horus’ right, his wings folding in neatly. His voice was softer, melodic, almost too beautiful for the utilitarian chamber. “You have seen us in fragments. Whispers. Rumors. Perhaps… terrors. Yet know this: we bleed for mankind. Our father made us not as lords, but as shields. This war that comes will test every soul here — mortal and immortal alike. But together? We can endure.”

Students in the crowd visibly relaxed under Sanguinius’ presence. Uraraka whispered to Tsuyu, eyes wide at the angel’s grace. Even hardened veterans like Gran Torino seemed momentarily disarmed.
Guilliman’s voice followed, crisp and clipped, carrying the cadence of command. “The galaxy burns with predators, parasites, and powers beyond your comprehension. Earth stands as the prize upon which many eyes now gaze. We will not allow it to fall. But order must be maintained. Strategy, structure, unity. Without it, you are already defeated.”

He gestured, and the war table shifted. The continents flared with light, tactical overlays spilling across the steel surface. Deployment zones. Supply lines. Kill-zones.
Finally, all eyes turned to Magnus.

The crimson primarch stood motionless, staff planted before him. His single golden eye regarded the mortals in silence, until the silence itself became unbearable. When he spoke, his voice was deep, resonant — a temple bell struck within the mind.
“Shadows stir,” Magnus intoned. “An artifact lies hidden upon this world, a key that will unlock damnation if it falls into the wrong hands. While you argue of borders and theaters, the enemy moves. Faster. Closer. I will see it found. I will see it destroyed.”

The words rolled like thunder, rattling glasses on the benches.

A hush fell.

Even the boldest heroes dared not breathe too loudly. Magnus did not mean to frighten them — but his aura made every word sound like prophecy carved in stone.
It was Sanguinius who touched his brother’s arm, wings brushing against Magnus’ robes like sunlight breaking storm clouds. “Peace, brother,” the angel murmured, low enough that mortals could not hear. “They see your power, but not your heart. Remember how they must look upon you.”

Magnus blinked once. Slowly. His lips parted as if to argue, but then closed. His eye lowered. For all his majesty, he looked for a moment… chided. Almost childlike, as though the angel’s words had reminded him that he never meant to terrify them at all.

The tension eased.

Nedzu seized the moment. “Excellent. Then let us proceed. The war council will hear the introductions of all eighteen Primarchs, that we may understand their strengths before assignments are made.”

Guilliman’s voice broke the hush.
“Now comes the heart of it,” the Lord of Ultramar said, his tone steady and statesmanlike. “You have seen the outline of our commitment. But to bring order, each continent must be placed under the guardianship of three of us, with our Legions deployed in strength. This cannot be symbolic. It must be functional. And to that end—my brothers will join us here, in full.”

A ripple of unease passed through the heroes and leaders. Until now, only four Primarchs had revealed themselves in flesh. The others had been named in briefing scrolls, voices on the strategium vox.
Now, they would be here.
“Call them,” Horus commanded.

The chamber doors thundered open.

They came not as men, but as an avalanche of history embodied. One by one, each Primarch entered with their First Captain at their side.

First, the Lion, silent and imposing, clad in sable and emerald. Beside him, Luther of the Dark Angels moved like a predator whose blade had never dulled.
Guilliman rose slightly from his seat to clasp his brother’s forearm, and the Lion nodded, as much greeting as he ever gave.

Then came Jaghatai Khan, striding with laughter in his eyes and storms at his heels. His First Captain, Jubal Khan, walked a step behind, silent, disciplined, the iron anchor to the Khan’s wild energy.

Following them, the rumble of Angron shook the air. The World Eater's presence was thunder, his nails-driven fury leashed only by his respect for his brothers. Beside him walked Khârn, his First Captain, whose every step seemed hungry for war. The room stiffened at the raw violence they radiated.

Perturabo entered next, the cold of stone and iron trailing him like a mantle. Warsmith Forrix shadowed him, his eyes sharp as augurs. Perturabo said nothing, his gaze already calculating the chamber’s structural weak points.

Lorgar followed, robed like a priest-king, his First Captain Kor Phaeron murmuring scripture beneath his breath. His eyes swept the mortals with unnerving intensity, as though weighing their souls against some unseen scale.

Vulkan came next, warmth and fire in his presence. Captain Artellus Numeon of the Firedrakes followed the image of a warrior-tempered anvil. The Salamander smiled at the young students who dared meet his gaze, and for a heartbeat, some forgot their fear.

The chamber grew colder as Konrad Curze emerged from the shadows, Sevatar at his side, grinning like a wolf. Murmurs swept through the heroes at the sight of the pale, corpse-like giant. Midnight’s hand tightened on her whip. Even the bravest students dared not hold his eyes.

Behind him came Mortarion, a walking mountain of gloom, Calas Typhon’s bulk a shadow at his shoulder. The stench of finality seemed to cling to them, even through the filtered air.

Then Rogal Dorn, every step precise, every line of his armor flawless. Captain Sigismund moved beside him, his bearing so knightly that several of the pro heroes instinctively straightened.

Corvus Corax entered with little sound, his First Captain Nykona Sharrowkyn close, their shadows long and sharp. He seemed to fade at the edges, a ghost among titans.

Leman Russ shouldered his way in after, laughing, a wolf-king loosed among prey. Bjorn The Fell-Handed, his First Captain, walked proudly with him, his scars glinting in the light. Russ thumped his chest and growled something in Fenrisian that needed no translation: a promise of bloodshed for his enemies.

Ferrus Manus came, steel-handed, eyes like molten metal. Gabriel Santar kept pace with him, both of them hard as the iron they bore.

Fulgrim swept in next, radiant as a blade just drawn, with Julius Kaesoron glittering at his side. Even the pro heroes whispered at his beauty, though the perfection had an edge that pricked unease.

Alpharius—or was it Omegon?—slipped in silently, their First Captain, Igno Pech, never more than a pace from them. The room shifted uneasily; none could tell if one or both twins stood there.
The full host of Primarchs now filled the dais, towering above the mortals. Eighteen giants, eighteen legions behind them, the air heavy with the weight of empires unborn.

Nedzu cleared his throat, the tiny principal dwarfed utterly by their presence but refusing to bow to fear.
“Now that… all of you are gathered,” he said, voice sharp, “we must move to assignments. The world awaits your decision. Heroes, students—listen well. For what is decided here will shape all battles to come.”

Roboute Guilliman lifted a hand, voice cutting through the rising hum of whispers.
“We divide by continent. Three of us per region. Each Legion will bear the burden of securing and defending one part of Terra’s vast surface. We will fight not as conquerors, but as guardians. Each of you mortals—heroes, teachers, students—will be paired with us. Together we will forge a shield that Chaos cannot break.”

He turned, gesturing.
“Horus, Magnus, and Sanguinius will hold Asia.”

Horus stepped forward. His voice was hard but magnetic.
“Asia is the heart of your world, the most densely populated, and therefore the most vulnerable. My Luna Wolves, Sanguinius’ Blood Angels, and Magnus’ Thousand Sons will hold it. With us will be your strongest heroes, your fastest responders. We will not yield one city. Not one life, if it can be spared.”

Aizawa’s dry voice cut across. “And when you fail?”

Magnus’ single eye flared, but Sanguinius answered, calm and radiant.
“Then we bleed first. That is the meaning of command.”

The words silenced even Aizawa.

Next, Guilliman’s voice rolled on.
“Angron, Perturabo, and Lorgar will hold Africa and the Middle East. A crucible of deserts, mountains, and coasts. Harsh lands, harsher enemies. But no land is too harsh for the Legions.”

Lorgar raised his voice, honeyed and grim.
“We shall defend its people. Their prayers will not go unheard.”

Angron merely snarled, his chainaxes growling like beasts eager to be loosed.

“The Lion, myself, and Jaghatai Khan will take North America,” Guilliman continued.
The Khan barked a laugh. “A land of wide plains and great mountains? Good hunting grounds. My White Scars will run its length faster than any foe can move.”
The Lion said nothing, only folded his arms, but the tension in his stance promised he would hold every fortress to the last man.

“Vulkan, Curze, and Mortarion,” Guilliman announced next, “will secure South America.”
Vulkan nodded, voice deep and steady. “Its people will find us brothers.”
Curze chuckled darkly. “Or executioners.”
Mortarion’s rasp echoed. “Either way, the land will be cleansed.”
The heroes shifted uncomfortably at their tone.

“Russ, Corax, and Dorn will hold Europe,” Guilliman said.
Russ howled with laughter. “Ha! A land of kings and castles, eh? We’ll drink their mead and break their enemies!”
Corax only muttered, “We’ll do what needs to be done.”
Dorn stated, flat and iron-hard, “Europe will be a fortress. None shall pass.”

 

Finally, Guilliman’s gaze turned.
“Alpharius, Fulgrim, and Ferrus Manus will hold Oceania and Australia. An isolated theater, but no less vital.”
Fulgrim smiled dazzlingly. “A canvas for perfection.”
Ferrus’ iron fingers clenched. “We will make it unbreakable.”
Alpharius only tilted his head, unreadable.

The chamber was silent again. Heroes and students, all staring up at eighteen gods of war.

It was All Might who rose, his booming voice filling the hall.
“Then it is settled. Six continents. Eighteen Primarchs. Now comes time to disperse the Heroes and Students.”

Notes:

I took some liberties for first captains like for Corvus and Perturabo and Angron and instead chose pivotal characters from the respective legions even if they don't get the title in canon as first captain

Chapter 8: Setting the Board

Summary:

Now comes time for the players on team one to be divided and sorted

Chapter Eight: Setting the Board

The chamber stilled as All Might and Principal Nezu stepped up to the dais. The primarchs stood silently in their chosen places, waiting with patient intensity. The heroes and students shifted nervously, anticipation thick in the air.

Nezu hopped onto the podium, his tiny paws clasped together, his voice clear and deceptively cheerful.
“Now then! We’ve spoken much about ideals, logistics, and purpose. But words must be paired with action. The time has come to announce the deployment of the Legions of the Emperor, paired with the world’s heroes and the finest young students Japan has to offer. Together, you will form the shield and spear of this planet against the storm to come.”

He gestured toward the assembled primarchs, their towering figures radiating silent command.
“Each continent will be held by three of the Emperor’s sons and their Legions. With them, heroes and students will be divided to maximize cohesion and adaptability. Consider this not just deployment, but training—your quirks, your instincts, and your courage will learn to move as one with the might of the Imperium.”

A cheer rose among some of the younger students, though it quickly died in the presence of so many primarchs.
Nezu climbed up atop All Might’s shoulder, his small frame belying the authority in his tone.
“Attention! We will now finalize the deployment groups. Heroes, students—your futures are tied to these assignments. You will live, train, and fight alongside one another until this war is won.”

All Might stepped up beside him, his voice carrying like a thunderclap:
“This is not a scattering, but a forging! You are to be honed into weapons sharp enough to strike down the enemies of mankind. Remember that this honor is bought with responsibility. Stand tall, all of you!”

A ripple of nervous murmurs swept the gathered heroes and students.

Nezu lifted a paw. “Then, let us begin.”

Asia
Primarchs: Horus, Sanguinius, Magnus

Heroes: All Might, Gran Torino, Nighteye, Aizawa, Mt. Lady

Students: Midoriya, Tsuyu, Yaoyorozu, Monoma, Tetsutetsu, Reiko, Mirio

As the names were called, Midoriya’s heart thudded like a drum. His eyes flicked toward Sanguinius, the angelic primarch’s wings shifting faintly as though acknowledging him. Mirio grinned, punching the air with characteristic enthusiasm, while Tsuyu simply gave a quiet “ribbit” and hopped closer to Aizawa.
Monoma, predictably, smirked as though destiny had personally chosen him.

All Might gave his signature grin to Midoriya, yet warmer, more familial. “Young Midoriya, this is where you were meant to be.”

Africa & Middle East
Primarchs: Angron, Perturabo, Lorgar

Heroes: Captain Celebrity, Kamui Woods, Yoroi Musha, Vlad King, Shishido

Students: Todoroki, Jirou, Kirishima, Awase, Kendo, Ibara

A hush fell as Angron’s crimson gaze swept the chosen names. Todoroki straightened silently, his mismatched eyes calm but resolved. Kirishima gave a sharp grin, pounding a fist to his chest. Jirou muttered, “Oh great, me with the scary ones…” but still stepped forward.
Kendo glanced at her group, then at Vlad King, who gave her an encouraging nod.
Lorgar’s lips curled faintly, as though already composing sermons for this new congregation.

North America
Primarchs: Lion El’Jonson, Guilliman, Jaghatai Khan

Heroes: Star and Stripe, Midnight, Uwabami, Crust, Ingenium

Students: Iida, Ojiro, Mina, Pony, Shoda, Setsuna, Nejire

Star and Stripe scowled, folding her arms. “Good, I trust nobody else to defend my home”

Iida bowed sharply, glasses flashing. “It will be an honor to fight alongside you!”

Nejire waved happily at the primarchs, her energy filling the room. Mina nearly bounced with excitement, nudging Ojiro.
Guilliman observed them all with a steady, measuring gaze, already analyzing their potential.

South America
Primarchs: Vulkan, Konrad Curze, Mortarion

Heroes: Hawks, Wild Wild Pussycats (Pixie-Bob, Mandalay, Ragdoll, Tiger)

Students: Tokoyami, Uraraka, Koji, Tsuburaba, Manga, Kinoko

The chamber seemed to darken as Curze’s shadow passed over the called students. Uraraka’s cheerful face faltered for only a second before she forced her determination back into place. Tokoyami gave a solemn nod, his avian features unreadable.
Mandalay whispered encouragement to her team, while Hawks only smirked. “Guess I’ll be babysitting the goth crowd.”
Vulkan, towering and warm, smiled kindly at the students to counterbalance his brothers’ menace. “Fear not. With me, you are safe.”

Europe
Primarchs: Leman Russ, Corvus Corax, Rogal Dorn

Heroes: Mirko, Fatgum, Rock Lock, Wash, Cementoss

Students: Bakugo, Kaminari, Shoji, Sero, Kuroiro, Bondo, Juzo, Tamaki

Bakugo barked a laugh, hands sparking. “Hell yeah, Europe’s mine! Don’t slow me down!”

Kaminari gave a weak grin. “Guess I’m stuck with him again, huh…”

Tamaki paled visibly as he caught sight of Russ’s wolfish grin and Corax’s silent, predatory stare.

Mirko cracked her knuckles. “Finally, a group with some bite. Let’s raise some hell.”
Dorn said nothing, but his steady presence was enough to quiet even Bakugo—for a moment.

Oceania & Australia
Primarchs: Alpharius, Fulgrim, Ferrus Manus

Heroes: Endeavor, Best Jeanist, Gang Orca, Edge Shot, Hound Dog

Students: Shinso, Sato, Tooru, Aoyama, Jurota, Yui, Kamikiri, Kaibara

The final group caused an interesting mix of reactions.
Shinso’s expression remained unreadable, but his mind was racing.

Tooru waved invisibly. “Oceania sounds sunny! Yay!”

Endeavor folded his arms, his fiery gaze settling on Fulgrim, who returned the stare with a flawless, amused smile.

Ferrus’s metallic hands tightened as he muttered to Alpharius, “This will be a… curious mix.”
Best Jeanist cleared his throat, already composing speeches about discipline and unity.

When the last name was read, Nezu spread his arms wide.
“And so, the fate of Earth stands divided, not into weakness—but into strength. Six regions. Six armies. Six shields raised against the dark.”

All Might finished the declaration, his voice a roar.
“Together! We will not falter. Together—we will endure!”

The chamber erupted in cheers, though each voice carried its own notes of fear, pride, or doubt. Above it all, the primarchs watched silently, their gazes like gods judging the worth of mortal kind.

The pieces have been set. Let the game begin.

Prologue complete

Notes:

Mineta doesn't exist, instead its Shinso, who I think is a much more compelling character

Chapter 9: The Game Begins

Summary:

while the heroes and primarchs prep for war, we see what's happening with the other players. and the first seeds of corruption have bloomed

Chapter Nine: The Game Begins

During the events of chapter eight

The cavern was not of stone.

It pulsed. The walls were slick with a sheen that was not water but blood, endless rivulets that ran upward instead of down, pooling into hollows that should not have existed. The air reeked of rot and copper, of incense that burned without fire, and of whispers that came from no throat.
The League of Villains stood in the chamber’s heart, their feet sunk ankle-deep in a floor that throbbed like muscle.

Above them loomed All For One. His breathing rasped through the machinery grafted to his ruined body, but there was power in him still. More power now than ever, for he had called out into the void—and it had answered.
“Look at it,” he said, spreading his arms, voice layered with something far deeper than human tone. “The old gods of this world would abandon us. The heroes shackle themselves to their brittle morals. But beyond the veil… ah, beyond the veil are beings who understand true strength. True dominion. And they have heard me.”

The air tore open.

Not a portal, not a warp gate—but a wound in reality. Colors that did not exist bled through, shapes writhing, voices overlapping in mockery and prayer. The League staggered back, save for Shigaraki, who stood rigid, eyes wide, skin crawling as his Decay quirk almost flared on instinct.

All For One turned toward his pupil.
“Do you feel them, Tomura?” he whispered. “Do you feel the gaze of the eternal? You are chosen… as I was chosen. Swear yourself, and you will wield plagues that rot not just flesh, but hope itself.”

Shigaraki’s lips cracked into a smile—mad, broken, and childlike. His hands twitched at his sides. The whispers coiled around him like a crown. A voice older than worlds slithered into his skull, warm and putrid.
“I am Nurgle, Grandfather of Decay. Little one, you are mine. I shall give you gifts. The world will crumble to dust at your touch, but they will also adore you, for despair is its own twisted love.”

Shigaraki fell to his knees, laughing through dry sobs, scratching at his throat until blood welled. “Yes… yes! Let it all rot! Let them choke on their own happiness!”

The wound widened.

Fire of impossible colors spilled forth, sharp and cruel, wrapping itself around Twice. He staggered, clutching at his mask as phantom versions of himself peeled from his body, gibbering in discordant tones.
“Tch—wh-what the hell is happening—?! Stop it! I don’t—”

The voice that answered him was like knives dragged over silk.
“I am Tzeentch. Trickster, schemer, architect of fate. You are many, and yet you are one. In you lies the infinite paradox. With me, your lies will be truth, your madness will be power. You will remake the world with your endless selves.”

Twice’s laughter cracked, becoming shrill and weeping. “Yeah… yeah, that’s right, that’s perfect! No more broken me! Just more, and more, and more!”
He collapsed into the muck, writhing as flames that weren’t flames licked his skin.

Dabi stepped forward. Unlike the others, he did not cower. His patched flesh sizzled, the stench of charred skin filling the chamber.
“I don’t need your whispers,” he snarled into the void. “I already burn everything I touch.”

The laughter that greeted him was not kind. It was savage, blood-slick, war-drunk.
“I am Khorne, Lord of Battle. You are rage caged in fragile skin. I will break the cage. You shall not burn as a candle but as a war-sun, igniting the world in slaughter. Every kill will be mine, every scream my hymn.”

Dabi’s ruined lips peeled back in something like a grin. His flames roared, the pale blue turning to a deep bleeding blood red as his own lifeforce became its fuel. “Good. Let them all bleed. Let the heroes see how little their justice matters.”

And then came Himiko Toga.

She swayed as if drunk on perfume, eyes half-lidded, giggling at the carnage. Her knife gleamed wet, though no one had seen her cut.
“Finally,” she sang, voice echoing in harmonies not her own. “Someone understands… love. Blood. Wanting to be someone so badly you could drink them whole.”

The answer was velvet, a purr that brushed against the skin like silk sheets and daggers.
“I am Slaanesh, the Dark Prince. You crave love, obsession, perfection in desire. With me, there are no boundaries. No shame. Only ecstasy in hunger and violence, and in you… I see a flower blooming in gore.”
Toga licked her blade, shuddering with delight. “Mmm… finally. You get me. I’ll be your flower, your thorn, your knife in the dark.”

The cavern pulsed, the voices crescendoing.

And at the center, All For One raised his arms, drinking in the radiance of the four powers, wielding half of the Crown of the Eightfold path, the shards slotted into his mask as they glow. His ruined mask cracked, black ichor leaking from beneath. His voice thundered—not merely to the League, but to the warp itself.
“I am reborn. No longer bound by flesh, by quirk, by human frailty. I am undivided.”

The four powers answered as one, their tones merging into a single cacophony:
“SERVE US, AND THE WORLD IS YOURS.”

And in that moment, the League of Villains was no longer merely a cabal of criminals. They were apostles of Chaos. Their eyes glowed with ruinous power, their souls branded with sigils that bled into the air. Thousands of cultists are kneeling around the world, ready to begin the great game.

The cavern sealed behind them, leaving only the stench of blood, the echo of laughter, and the certainty that the war to come would not merely be against villains—

 

It would be against gods.

A Month Later

The sirens of Berlin still wailed when the strike force arrived.

Aboveground, chaos reigned. Hundreds of civilians pressed against cordons of local law enforcement, desperate, sobbing, praying for loved ones who had not emerged from the subway tunnels. It had been called a collapse—stone and steel giving way under the weight of the city four hours ago. But the auspex readings told a darker truth.

First Captain Sigismund of the Imperial Fists descended the shattered steps first, his yellow armor dim beneath the dust and smoke. His helm’s vox crackled as he turned his head back to those following.
“Eight of my brothers,” he said flatly, his voice like granite ground against iron. “Six locals. That is all. Keep formation. No recklessness. We will carve the way clear.”

Behind him came the chosen.
Mirko, brash and unflinching, teeth bared in a feral grin despite the summer heat.
Cementoss, calm and focused, already working with the astartes to brace the fractured walls.
Bakugo, scowling, palms sparking in impatience.
Kaminari, nervous, shifting from foot to foot but forcing a grin.
Bondo, silent, carrying emergency resin to trap falling debris.
Tamaki, eyes downcast, muttering whispers of courage to himself.

And then the Astartes—eight warriors of the VIIth, each a living fortress, weapons held at the ready as they followed their First Captain into the abyss.

The further they descended, the less it smelled of dust.

By the third landing, the air was damp, cloying, almost sweet. Bakugo wrinkled his nose. “Tch. Smells like something rotting down here. Are you sure this is just a tunnel collapse?”
Sigismund did not answer. He had felt it too. The weight in the air. The wrongness. Every step deeper was not into stone and rebar—but into something that breathed.
At the fourth level, Cementoss touched the wall to brace it. He recoiled, eyes wide. “This… isn’t concrete anymore.”

The heroes and students froze.

The tunnel wall pulsed under its thin veil of grime. Veins the width of cables throbbed in the stone, pumping a sludge that reeked of pus. The floor beneath their boots was spongy, wet, bleeding when cut by the edge of a boot plate.

They had not descended into rubble.

They had descended into flesh.

A low thrum vibrated through the cavern, like the beating of a colossal heart somewhere far beneath them. It matched no natural rhythm—it was heavy, uneven, but constant, like something diseased forcing itself to keep living.

Mirko crouched low, ears twitching, every muscle taut. “Tell me I’m not the only one hearing that heartbeat.”

Tamaki’s lips trembled. “It’s… it’s alive. The tunnel is alive…”

Sigismund raised his sword, the blade’s field crackling against the damp air. “Not alive,” he corrected grimly. “Infested. Corrupted. This is no collapse. This is a tumor of the warp.”
As if to answer him, the lights flickered.

The number plates on the walls—emergency indicators painted in white—had changed. The same number repeated over and over, scratched in fresh gouges across metal and stone alike:

333.

Bondo whispered, his normally steady voice uncharacteristically shaken. “There were… three hundred and thirty-three civilians trapped down here.”

Kaminari’s grin faded. “No way that’s a coincidence…”

Sigismund’s vox clicked on, his voice steel even as the walls quivered around them. “Brothers. Students. You stand within a tumor of Nurgle. Look around you—every surface is infected. Every breath we take feeds it. It's already spreading. Masks on”

The ground shuddered violently. Chunks of ceiling fell, only to burst in midair into showers of writhing maggots before hitting the floor.

One of the Astartes growled, raising his bolter. “This infestation runs deep, First Captain. More than one cavern. More than one artery.”

Sigismund’s helm turned, scanning the pulsating walls. He could see it—arterial growths pushing further into the earth, tunnels birthing tunnels, all connected by the endless beat of that foul heart.
“It is beneath the entire subway system,” he said at last, his tone sharpened with grim finality. “Every line. Every station. This city does not rest on stone anymore. It rests on flesh. And it grows larger every beat.”

Bakugo snarled under his gas mask, explosions sparking in his hands. “So what? We blow it to hell right now!”

Sigismund’s gaze did not waver. “No. This will not fall to eight Astartes and six mortals. If we strike recklessly, the city above will collapse into its bowels.”

He lifted a hand to his vox, cycling to the encrypted frequency shared by the European commands. His voice carried no fear, no hesitation, only the iron certainty of a man bred to stand against the abyss.
“To Rogal Dorn, Primarch of the VIIth. To Corvus Corax of the XIXth. To Leman Russ of the VIth. This is Sigismund, First Captain of the VIIth Legion, reporting from Berlin. The city’s underways are compromised by a warp-tumor of Nurgle. Estimated infestation: the entire transit network. Estimated civilians at risk: millions. Immediate reinforcement required.”

The walls quivered as if in answer.

From the darkness ahead, something moved. Wet, dragging, many-limbed. The faint light of their helmets caught the first glimpse: a bloated figure, its swollen belly dragging across the floor, its mouth splitting its

body in two, wailing in a voice that was both infant and corpse.

Sigismund raised his blade. His brothers locked their bolters into place.
“Hold position,” he commanded. “We are the shield of mankind. We will hold until the Primarchs arrive.”

The heart beneath Berlin beat louder.

Aboard the Phalanx

Above Earth, the void was calm.

But within the heart of the Phalanx, Rogal Dorn knew there was no such thing as calm. Only preparation.

The command chamber stretched around him like a cathedral of steel, its walls humming with the low thrumming of reactors. Tactical hololiths shimmered across the air, their projections of Europe marked with defensive lines, supply corridors, and fallback bastions—an iron web that Dorn had spun over the course of weeks.

The Primarch of the Imperial Fists stood alone at the table, gauntleted hands pressing against the glowing schematic of Berlin. He was redrawing, refining, considering every possible point of failure. A fortress was not only built in stone. It was built in foresight.

A vox-officer approached, helm bowed in deference. “My lord… a transmission. From First Captain Sigismund. Priority alpha.”
Dorn turned sharply. The hololith shifted, Sigismund’s helm-vision crackling into view. Yellow armor dim, heroes and students clustered at his back, and behind them—pulsing walls of flesh that should never have existed.

Dorn’s golden eyes hardened. He needed no words.
“The call will be answered,” he said quietly. “Signal my brothers.”

Far south, the coast of Portugal lay beneath a cloudy sky.

Corvus Corax was the shadow among shadows, his form little more than a suggestion of wings and pale features where the light broke across him. He had not taken to the city patrols with comfort—he was a predator, not a warden—but he had adapted, moving unseen across rooftops, watching for signs of corruption that mortal eyes could not pierce.
At his side, Kuroiro merged in and out of the shadows cast by the Primarch’s presence, the boy half-invisible even when he stood a foot away. To march in Corax’s patrols was to learn silence, patience, and the meaning of dread.

The Primarch’s vox clicked, Dorn’s voice crackling through.
“Berlin. Nurgle’s rot beneath the city. Sigismund holds a skeleton squad. Reinforcement required.”

Kuroiro’s pale eyes widened, but Corax did not move at first. His wings unfurled with a whisper of black feathers. “I am already on the hunt,” he said softly, voice like a crow’s cry at midnight. “Berlin will not fall.”

To the north, the fjords of Sweden burned with cold light.

Leman Russ strode among his Wolves, laughter echoing across the snowbound hills as he oversaw joint drills between his Astartes and mortal allies. Fatgum, clad in his yellow costume, cheered as squads sparred; Rock Lock barked sharp critiques; Wash burbled encouragements; Shoji and Sero trained alongside the Space Wolves themselves, learning the brutal rhythm of their war-song.
Russ was a king among them, larger than life, fur cloak snapping in the winter wind, axe slung casually across his back. Where he walked, morale rose like flame in dry tinder.

The vox-bead at his ear chimed. Dorn’s voice again, low and hard. “Berlin.”

Russ stilled. For a moment the wolfish grin faded, replaced with the grim steel of the lord who had been named the emperor's executioner. His gaze turned east, toward where Berlin lay far beyond the horizon.
“Gather your gear, pups,” he growled, voice suddenly sharp as the winter air. “A rot festers under the heart of a city. And the Wolves will burn it clean.”

Fatgum blinked at the sudden shift in tone, but Shoji felt it too—the shift in the air. Something terrible was waiting.

Back aboard the Phalanx, Dorn’s fingers tapped against the hololith as green runes lit up across the map. The three Primarchs were moving, their Legions answering the call. Reserve companies roused from training decks, strike craft prepared, vox-lines lit with orders.

Sigismund’s voice still lingered in Dorn’s ear. Eight Astartes. Six mortals. Millions at risk.

The Lord of the VIIth stared at the projection of Berlin, its subway system overlaid with arterial growths that pulsed in sync with the faint sensor readings of an unnatural heartbeat.
“Nurgle dares to plant his filth in my domain.”

His voice was cold steel, final and absolute.
“Then Berlin shall become a fortress—or a tomb.”

Rogal Dorn strides before the central auspex chamber. Techmarines and mortal savants scurried at his word, reconfiguring cogitators and diverting the fortress’s long-range sensor arrays from their standard planetary sweeps to focus—narrow, precise—upon Berlin.

The hololith bloomed.
First came the surface: city blocks, bridges, subway lines etched in wireframe blue. Then, layer by layer, Dorn ordered the scans to dig deeper, piercing strata of soil, stone, and foundation.

What emerged made him still.

Where tunnels and sewer veins should have lain in ordered patterns of infrastructure, there was something else. Pulsing, cancerous tissue snaked through the earth in sprawling knots, hundreds of yards across. Black pits yawned where stations should have been, their edges devoured and reshaped into gaping, fleshy maws. Veins of warp-tainted meat slithered outward like cracks in glass, threading into the banks of the Spree, Dahme and Havel rivers, turning water tables into channels of infection.

Dozens of miles. Entire districts of Berlin sat atop an abomination that beat like a heart.

Every few seconds the auspex display flickered—static interference, impossible to correct. Dorn did not need explanation. The warp itself was bleeding through.
Sigismund’s words replayed in his mind: Eight Astartes. Six mortals. Millions at risk.

Dorn’s jaw clenched, hands tightening against the rail.
“This is not an infestation,” he said flatly, his voice carrying across the chamber. “This is a siege beneath the earth itself. A fortress of rot.”

One of the mortal savants whispered a prayer under his breath. Dorn silenced him with a glance. No prayers. No false hope. Only stone, steel, and truth.
He straightened, golden eyes fixed on the red-lit projection of Berlin as if the city itself were defying him. In another age, he would have prepared a systematic purge, a slow encirclement with attrition and reinforcement. But this was no normal war. Time was a weapon of the enemy here—every moment allowed the tumor to swell.

Dorn’s hand moved to the vox-console.
“Open long-range channel. Priority, Warmaster Horus. Relay to his flagship in Asia.”

The officers hesitated only a heartbeat before rushing to comply, rune-slates flaring to life as the transmission pierced the void. Dorn’s voice was steel, measured and without hesitation.
“Warmaster. This is Dorn, aboard the Phalanx. Berlin is compromised. A Nurgle tumor has infiltrated the entire substructure of the city—miles of sewers, tunnels, and waterways overtaken. It expands with every beat of its heart. The population above sits on a living bomb of plague and corruption. My First Captain holds the line, but the scale exceeds containment.”

He paused, eyes fixed on the crimson sprawl below the streets.
“I request authorization for god-engines. Titans must walk in Berlin. Nothing less will excise this filth before it devours the continent.”
T
he words hung in the command chamber like a death knell. Techmarines froze. Even the Astartes on duty glanced toward their primarch with measured caution.
Dorn did not waver.

This was no longer a matter of pride, or patience, or even his own Legion.
If Berlin fell, Europe would follow.

The vox channel closed. Silence reigned across the Phalanx’s command deck. The auspex projection still pulsed—Berlin’s underworld glowing red with infestation, an infection eating the city alive.
Dorn did not move. He was a fortress made of flesh, carved in marble resolve. But even his patience was a taut wire. Titans were no small request, nor a weapon lightly unleashed on a hive of humanity.
Before any reply could be returned from Asia, the chamber air trembled.

A sudden gale rippled across the deck, the tang of ozone biting at the tongue. Crimson light flared from the chamber’s center, swelling into a sphere of warped geometry—curved angles folding in on themselves, impossible to look at directly.

Bolters snapped up. Astartes stepped forward in disciplined arcs, their yellow armor a wall around their primarch. Dorn himself did not flinch.

The sphere collapsed inward with a thunderclap.

Magnus the Red stood upon the deck. A mountain of bronze and crimson, his single eye burning like a brand of otherworldly fire. Around him, ten of the Thousand Sons appeared in perfect formation, their ornate helms sweeping, staves clutched like banners of sorcery.

The warp had not so much bent to Magnus’s will as obeyed it outright.
“Stand down,” Dorn ordered, raising one hand. His voice was iron calm, but his jaw tightened. He had not given leave for teleportation aboard his fortress.

Magnus inclined his head, a faint smile curling his lips. “Forgive the intrusion, brother. Time does not grant us the luxury of formality.” His voice rolled deep, a tide of thought beneath the sound.

Dorn’s golden eyes narrowed. “You tread without invitation, Magnus.”

“And yet,” Magnus replied smoothly, turning his gaze to the hololith of Berlin, “you required me.”

The chamber air seemed to thrum as his eye lingered on the projection. His staff tapped once upon the deck plating, and the auspex wavered. For a heartbeat, the flickering display merged with something else—images not of metal scans, but of the warp itself.

The tumor roared in silent vision. Vast roots of foul flesh twisting into infinity, a parody of arteries and organs feeding on mortal fear. Its heart throbbed not in seconds, but in souls, each beat fed by suffering unseen.

Magnus’s lip curled. “Yes. I feel it. A tumor of Nurgle’s making, hidden in the womb of the earth. And growing.”
He turned, his gaze cutting through the mortal officers, through the deck, through the void, as though Berlin itself lay beneath his palm. “You were right to call for god-engines, Rogal. Steel and fire may burn away its veins, but this corruption… it feeds upon more than matter. You have Legions of stone and discipline, but too few of the Librarius. You are blind where I see.”

Dorn bristled. “I see enough.”

“No.” Magnus’s voice cracked like a whip, reverberating through the metal bones of the Phalanx. His eye burned brighter, a sun behind a storm. “You see walls, fortresses, engines of war. I see the cancer threading into the immaterium itself. For every meter your Titans scorch, ten more bloom beyond your sight. Without a counter to the warp, your soldiers will drown in it.”

Silence. The command chamber’s air felt heavier, as though gravity itself bent to the Primarch’s presence.

Then Magnus’s tone softened, almost… brotherly. “I will not let Berlin fall. Horus cannot hear you now—his tongue is wasted soothing diplomats. But I? I hear the threads screaming.”
He stepped closer to the hololith, and his gauntlet hovered above it like a hand upon a beating heart. “I will walk beside your sons. My Legionaries are at hand, their sight unclouded. With your engines, with my flame, we can cut this filth root and branch.”

Dorn regarded him for a long, still moment.

It was not trust. Dorn trusted stone, not sorcery. But even stone knew when it required fire to be forged into something greater.

At last, the Praetorian gave a single, sharp nod. “Very well. But understand this, Magnus—upon the Phalanx, I am master. You will not walk these halls unbidden again.”

Magnus inclined his head, faint amusement dancing across his features. “Then let us ensure there is a Berlin left for your fortresses to protect.”

The chamber’s tension eased, if only slightly. The auspex projection shimmered once more, blending science and sorcery into a single truth: a city in peril, a world in the balance.
Dorn’s hand fell to the vox once more.
“Summon Titan Legios to Berlin. Prepare all European detachments for redeployment. This is no longer containment. This is war.”

The air was rot.

Sigismund’s boots sank ankle-deep into the pulsing meat that had once been stone. Each step quivered, sending tremors through the tunnel like the twitch of a dying leviathan. Around him, Imperial Fists cut their way forward with chainswords and bolters, every blow sending up spurts of pus and black ichor. The heroes fought shoulder to shoulder, their quirks lighting the darkness—Bakugo’s explosions igniting the cloying air, Mirko’s legs a blur of raw power as she drove a hole through a wall of dripping flesh, Tamaki twisting into monstrous forms to shield the students.
But it was not enough. The deeper they struck, the more the walls moved against them. The tumor pulsed, laughing in its own sick rhythm.

Then Sigismund’s vox crackled.
The voice was Dorn’s, cold as iron:
“First Captain. You will withdraw immediately.”

Sigismund’s teeth clenched. He drove his blade through a rope of veined flesh, tearing it apart with a snarl. “Father… the tumor grows by the hour. If we leave it—”

“If you stay, you die.” Dorn’s voice cut clean, no room for argument. “This is no longer a rescue. This is a war. Fall back and preserve your strength. Reinforcements are en route.”

For a heartbeat, Sigismund said nothing. His gauntlets shook with the force of his rage, his soul screaming to carve deeper, to drown this filth in his own blood if that was what it demanded.

Then the world above howled.

Sirens tore through Berlin’s streets—deep, resonant wails that carried across the city. Lights flickered red against the night sky as civilians poured into the open, screaming and confused.

And then the heavens split.

Drop-pods thundered through the clouds, their descent like meteors burning against the night. The ground shook as they slammed into boulevards and plazas, armor blooming open to disgorge squads of Imperial Fists in unbroken formation, black-armored Raven Guard phantoms slipping into the alleys, grey-fanged Space Wolves emerging with howls that chilled the blood.

Berlin was no longer a city. It was a battlefield.

Sigismund turned to his squad, his voice a command like thunder. “Fall back! Protect the civilians! Every street, every square—buy them the time to flee!”

Mirko spat blood and grinned savagely. “Tch. About damn time this turned into a real fight.”

Bakugo cursed but followed, explosions lighting the path behind them as Cementoss raised barricades to slow the advancing meat. Tamaki and the students rallied to cover the civilians, their young faces pale but unyielding.

The tunnel shook one final time as the tumor roared, the walls flexing like lungs drawing in breath. But the squad was already moving, dragging survivors with them as they ascended back toward the light of the burning city.

Sigismund cast one last glance behind. Into the darkness. Into the heartbeat of the foe he would one day cut out.

His oath burned hotter than any flame:
This was not a retreat. This was the first step toward the kill.

Notes:

the first chapter of the growing war, the growing garden discovered early, before it could truly bloom...but is it the only one? find out next time on dragon ball Z :)

Chapter 10: The Siege of Berlin

Summary:

the first pieces have been primed, the powder keg is ready to explode, and the world reels from the whispered threat finally showing itself.

Chapter Ten: The Siege of Berlin

The sirens never stopped.

Their wailing cut through Berlin’s avenues, bouncing off glass towers and crumbling stone alike, a sound that meant one thing—the city was no longer safe.
Anna held her daughter tight as Auxilla troopers shepherded their crowd down Unter den Linden. The soldiers’ armor was unlike anything she’d ever seen—bronze-burnished plates, crests of the old Imperium across their pauldrons, disciplined to the bone. Bayonets gleamed at their sides as they shouted orders in clipped Low Gothic, translators repeating in German through vox-speakers.

Her daughter pointed at the sky, wide-eyed.
“Mama… shooting stars!”

Anna followed her gaze—drop-pods fell in waves, burning through the clouds like comets, shaking the ground as they hit. But they weren’t stars. They were men, giants of yellow, black, and grey, emerging from iron coffins with weapons the size of artillery.

The Auxilla pushed the civilians faster. “Keep moving! Quarantine cordons are forming at the river! Anyone left behind will be sealed off!”

Bakugo’s palms smoked as he watched the first line of Imperial Fists form across a boulevard, their shields locking into an unbreakable wall. Behind them, Solar Auxilla heavy teams planted autocannons and mortars in the squares, barricading streets with cold precision.

“Tch…” Bakugo spat, the explosions in his palms twitching with restrained frustration. “These guys… they don’t even look nervous. Do they even get how bad this is?!”

Mirko slammed a fist into his shoulder, grinning despite the blood on her lip. “That’s the point, brat. If they weren’t calm, we’d be screwed.”

Bakugo looked again. The giants didn’t flinch as civilians screamed past them. Their visors glowed faintly in the dark, utterly unmoved. He hated it. He respected it. He couldn’t decide which more.

Cementoss had thought he’d seen disaster response before. He hadn’t.
From his vantage point, he watched an entire district converted in less than half an hour—auxilia engineers laying prefabricated bunkers, Raven Guard scouts slinking through rooftops to scout infection lines, Space Wolves herding panicked civilians with surprising gentleness. It was war as architecture, every avenue locked into the Primarch’s geometry.

He muttered under his breath as he raised another barricade from the ground. “So this is what real fortification looks like…”

Karl, eighty years old, had lived through bombings before. He’d thought he’d never see war return to Berlin’s streets. Yet now—he looked up into the eyes of a giant in midnight-black armor, wings of a raven etched into his pauldron.

The Astartes did not speak. He simply laid a massive gauntlet on Karl’s trembling shoulder and guided him toward the evacuation column.
Karl had been a boy the last time foreign soldiers had marched through Berlin. He remembered fear, brutality, despair.
This was different. This was… impossible.
The giant was not cruel. He was a wall. A living bastion.

Kaminari nearly tripped trying to keep up with the Imperial Fists squad he’d been attached to. Their stride was like a metronome, precise and unyielding. He blasted another jolt of electricity down a side corridor, keeping the shadows back.

He’d never admit it out loud, but his voice cracked on the vox.
“Uh—Captain? S-sir? Tell me straight, do we… do we even have a chance against this thing underground?”

The yellow-armored warrior didn’t look back.
“We do.”
That was it. No hesitation. No doubt. And somehow, Kaminari’s heart steadied just hearing it.

From high above, gunship wings cut across the Berlin night, their vox loudspeakers booming orders in dozens of tongues. In every street, Imperial fists, Raven Guard, and Space Wolves moved with clinical certainty, placing themselves between the civilians and the creeping horror below.

The Warp tumor pulsed unseen under the ground. The people of Berlin ran. Heroes and soldiers stood. And the city—ancient, scarred, eternal—shook under the weight of gods preparing for war.

 

They called him Eisenschild.
Germany’s strongest hero. The Iron Shield.
For fifteen years, he had been Berlin’s guardian. When earthquakes struck, he braced collapsing towers with his quirk-hardened arms. When villains tried to bomb the Bundestag, he had thrown himself on the charge and lived. The city trusted him. He had never failed it.
Until tonight.

Eisenschild stood atop the Reichstag’s roof, the night air stinking of promethium and scorched steel. Below, Berlin was no longer his city—it was a fortress.
In the last six hours, the yellow giants of the VII Legion had turned avenues into kill lanes, their prefabricated barricades locking into place with brutal efficiency. Solar Auxilla troop carriers rumbled down Unter den Linden, disgorging squads who stacked sandcrete bunkers where monuments once stood. Raven Guard meltateams vanished into shadows, leaving only the faint shimmer of optics behind.

Even the Spree was no longer free-flowing. The Space Wolves had ferried barges into the river and bristled them with autocannons, chaining them into makeshift platforms. The water was now a moat.
He clenched his fists as he looked out over the city. My Berlin… is gone. In one night, they’ve broken it down and rebuilt it into a killing ground.
His comm-link buzzed, the translated voice of an Auxilla officer crackling through.
“Hero Eisenschild, your sector is designated Cordon Sigma. Reinforce the barricade at Checkpoint 17 and assist with crowd control. No civilians past the line. Quarantine is absolute.”

He growled low.
“You speak to me as if I am your subordinate.”

There was silence. Then another voice cut in—calm, cold, undeniably commanding. It needed no translation.
“This is Dorn.”

Eisenschild froze. The Primarch’s voice carried weight like stone pressing down.
“You are not my subordinate. You are Berlin’s protector. That is why you will stand this line with us. Do you understand?”

The German hero swallowed, pride burning in his chest. For a moment, he wanted to shout that this was his city, that he had defended it before these giants ever came from the stars. But when he looked down, saw the Imperial Fists moving in perfect synchronicity, their bolters locking into place as if they had done this a thousand times before… he only nodded.

“I understand.”

By dawn, Eisenschild had stood at the checkpoint for six hours straight, shield raised, redirecting panicked civilians into evacuation corridors as Imperial Fists set turrets behind him.
When a family tried to push through the cordon, he stopped them with arms of living steel. When looters broke from the alleys, he slammed them into the dirt without hesitation. He was no longer the face of Berlin. He was a piece of its wall, a stone in Dorn’s foundation.

And in that moment, for the first time in years, Eisenschild felt something strange. Not pride. Not power.

Relief.

If Berlin could be remade into a fortress overnight, maybe—just maybe—it could survive what pulsed beneath its streets.

 

The command bunker stank of sweat, oil, and ozone. Built hastily above ground on the edge of Alexanderplatz, it was little more than a slabbed ferrocrete block bristling with vox-aerials and auspex pylons. Maps of Berlin sprawled across the tables, ink and hololithic overlays showing fortifications spreading like veins through the city.
Inside, warriors and heroes gathered—giants and children alike.

Russ sat at the head of the table, broad shoulders hunched, wolf pelts dragging across the steel floor. His great hand clutched a mug that would have been a bucket to a normal man, the scent of strong fenrisian ale hanging heavy in the cramped air. His fangs glinted as he growled between swigs.
“Three hours. That’s how long Dorn says it’ll take to deploy the Titans. Three damned hours, while that thing down there fattens on the city’s marrow.”

Beside him, a knot of his Vlka Fenryka stood guard—grey-armored Space Wolves, the chamber’s walls practically quaking with their weight.

Across the table, a cluster of students shifted uncomfortably. Bakugo scowled as if daring anyone to meet his eyes, Kaminari fiddled nervously with the cables on his support gear, and Shoji stood silently near the doorway like a living bulwark. Tamaki sat with knees drawn in, muttering under his breath, while Mirko leaned against the wall with her arms crossed, looking as impatient as Russ himself.

“Three hours ain’t so bad,” Mirko said, ears twitching. “Plenty of time to stretch my legs.”

Russ slammed his mug down hard enough to crack the ferrocrete.

“You’ve never seen one of these nests awake, rabbit. They don’t wait politely for the Titans.”
The students fell silent. Even Bakugo.

The lights flickered. A low vibration rattled the bunker, dust sifting down from the ceiling. Everyone went still.
Cementoss frowned, raising a palm to the concrete wall. “That wasn’t demolition. That came from below us.”
Russ’s eyes narrowed. His instincts had been honed in the ice wastes of Fenris, in the void between stars, in battles against horrors mortals could scarcely name. He knew the rhythm of the earth. This was not an earthquake.

The ground heaved again, harder, tossing cups and maps to the floor. Auspex screens flared red as alarms shrieked.

“In Allfather’s name…” one of the Space Wolves muttered. “It’s waking.”

Russ bared his teeth.
“No. It’s hungry.”

The third quake was no tremor—it was a convulsion. The floor buckled, ferrocrete splitting down the middle. Screams rose outside the bunker as Berlin’s streets warped, asphalt cracking into canyons that oozed slick, bile-green filth.

The walls shook. Then the sound came—wet, thunderous, and impossibly vast. A heartbeat.

BOOM.

The bunker lights flickered.

BOOM.

The auspex spiked with impossible readings.

Russ surged to his feet, his clawed gauntlet snapping onto Mjalnar, his great sword. His fangs were bared, but his voice was steady, commanding.
“On your feet! Weapons ready! This is no quake. The Gore Nest is rising!”

Mirko’s grin widened into something feral.
“Finally.”

Bakugo lit up with explosions around his fists, shouting, “Hell yeah—time to blow this freakshow apart!”

Kaminari’s hands shook as sparks danced across his gloves. “W-we’re fighting that? Russ, are you serious—?”

Russ cut him off with a wolf’s bark of laughter, wild and terrible.
“Of course we are! You think the sons of Fenris cower in a hole while monsters claw at the gate? No! We bite back!”

The bunker ceiling split, concrete collapsing inward. Through the rupture, the night sky was choked with rising vapors—thick, rotting clouds pulsing green with unnatural light. The air was heavy, every breath clogged with spores.

And beneath it all, the city groaned like a living thing.

Auxilla officers rushed in, their faces pale.
“My lord! The sewers have ruptured—the river itself is fouled! The growth has spread under half the eastern districts—”

Russ snarled, silencing him with a raised claw. His voice cut through the chaos like steel.
“Sound the sirens! Pull every civilian back to the second cordon! Sigismund’s men fall to rear defense! This nest won’t wait for the Titans—Berlin stands or dies here!”

He looked to the students and heroes, eyes burning like blue fire.
“You wanted to fight beside the Legions? Then stand firm. Tonight, you’ll see war for what it is.”

The bunker shuddered again. Outside, the streets of Berlin were no longer stone and steel. They pulsed like veins. The Gore Nest was awake.

And it was hungry.

The sirens screamed. Their banshee wails cut through the night sky, rising over the roar of collapsing streets and shrieks of terrified civilians. Berlin shook as though gripped by the hand of an angry god.
The first breaches came through the subways. Tunnels that had been sealed and mapped by Dorn’s engineers split wide as festering light erupted from their depths. Commuter stations belched smoke and filth before vomiting hordes.

They poured into the streets in their thousands—bodies swollen with rot, dripping lesions, jaws slack and gnashing. Poxwalkers. Men, women, children—every soul who had been entombed below when the lines collapsed now shambled into the light, reanimated by plague’s caress. Their moans filled the boulevards like a funeral dirge.

From the sewer grates they came next. Streams of filth bubbled upward, bursting open into geysers of pus and bone. Nurgling swarms tumbled out squealing, tumbling over each other in manic joy. They bit at ankles, tore at flesh, filled gutters and storm drains until the city stank of their laughter.

The Spree and Havel rivers themselves darkened, water churning to sludge. Out from the current drifted corpses swollen to bursting, splitting open midstream to reveal horrors within—tentacled beasts dripping with slime, croaking to their grandfather in praise.

The Gore Nest’s heart beat faster. With each pulse, the air thinned. Voxes screamed static as reality tore.
And then—the veil split.

Green lightning ripped across the skyline, warping spires and war memorials into grotesque shapes. The Brandenburg Gate cracked, each pillar sprouting a weeping eye. The Tiergarten withered in seconds, trees blackening as daemons stepped into the world like guests arriving for a feast. Plaguebearers trudged in solemn file, tallying corpses in rasping croaks. Rot Flies buzzed overhead, their wings heavy with decay.
Everywhere, the walls of Berlin erupted into war. Solar Auxilia fired from hastily built barricades, lasfire blazing in endless sheets of red. Astartes squads slammed into formations, bolters roaring, chainswords screeching, their ceramite armor already spattered with gore.

Russ stood at the heart of it, howling orders as his Wolves leapt into the fray. “Bite them back! Hold the streets! Let no daemon touch the civilians!” His laughter was wild and terrible, echoing over the cacophony as he cleaved through plaguebearers with his sword.

Heroes of Japan and Europe hurled themselves into the carnage beside them—Eisenchild’s metal arms ripped apart plaguebearers and pox walkers with ease, Mirko leaping rooftop to rooftop, snapping necks and splattering daemon skulls. Fatgum planted himself across a boulevard, his massive body absorbing volleys of pus-ridden bile before slamming whole mobs into the pavement. Shoji carried children two at a time as lasfire scorched the night around him.

Still, the nest only swelled.

The ground convulsed once more, a quake that split the Unter den Linden straight down the middle. From that yawning fissure came a smell that defied description—a stench of rot so heavy the Auxilia nearest collapsed, vomiting blood as their lungs seized.
A massive claw burst through the street, each talon the size of a tank. Asphalt cracked and peeled away as the earth split wider.
Then it rose.

The Great Unclean One.

It was vast, obscene, its bulk eclipsing the buildings around it. Its hide was a tapestry of sores and ruptures, rivers of pus pouring from its belly, where an open gash spilled writhing nurglings like a womb. Its eyes were sickly lanterns, glowing with grandfather’s love, and its voice was a low, booming chuckle that rattled every bone in the city.
“Children, children… so many fresh mouths for Grandfather’s garden… come, let us play…”

Its bell tolled, each peal warping the air, each vibration dragging Berlin deeper into the warp’s embrace.

The defenders faltered. For a heartbeat, all the guns and all the courage seemed pitiful before the weight of that corpulent horror.

Russ spat, raising his sword high, his voice a thunderclap that rolled across the broken city.
“STAND! If Berlin falls tonight, then we sell it dearly! Wolves, with me!”
And with that, the battle for Berlin truly began.

The city screamed, fire and rot locked in a death embrace. The Great Unclean One lumbered forward, its girth splitting boulevards as it laughed, each step a quake that shook the defenders to their knees.
And then—the sky answered.

A horn bellowed across the heavens, a sound so vast it seemed to come from the bones of the world itself. Windows exploded in concentric waves, glass shattering for miles in every direction. Daemons clutched their ears and howled as the note rolled over the city—war made sound.

Through the burning clouds, they fell.

One by one, the god-engines of the Collegia Titanica Legios Ignatum broke the sky, their void shields sparking as they plunged into the heart of Berlin. Their retro-thrusters tore craters in the streets as their vast feet planted themselves in a ring around the chaos breach. Each was a walking cathedral of iron and vengeance, banners streaming in the wind, their weapon-arms burning with power.
Reavers, Warhounds, and Warlords encircled the nest, forming a line of adamantium that towered above even the tallest spires of the ruined city. Their engines growled like chained beasts awaiting release.

And then—it came.

Behind the lines, further than a mile back, the ground split under a weight no mortal structure could hold. Towers shook and collapsed as a shadow eclipsed the city’s ruin.

An Imperator Titan descended—vast beyond comprehension, a mountain wrapped in steel, a fortress that strode upon two colossal legs. Its name blazed across its hull in High Gothic script:

Magnificum Incendius.

The Titan of Fire and Majesty. A god of Legio Ignatum.

Its first footfall shook the city so hard that rubble cascaded in waves. Its second came with the toll of its vox-horns, a proclamation of divine wrath.

The Great Unclean One turned its swollen head, green ichor spilling from its grin.

The Titan’s eyes blazed, and its voice thundered down like judgement day:

“BY THE OMNISSIAH’S HAND, THIS WORLD IS DEFENDED.”

Berlin’s battle had become a war of gods.

Notes:

I decided to name the Warp tumor(s) that will infect earth, usually underground, Gore Nests, I liked the term when I played Doom Eternal and thought it fit. so that is how they will often be referred too going on in the story

Chapter 11: The Eyes of Mortals, The Hammer of Gods

Summary:

in their darkest hour, the titans walk alongside the god like warriors who promised to defend the world

Chapter Eleven: The Eyes of Mortals, Hammers of Gods

The quake from the Imperator’s landing had not yet faded when Berlin erupted in a storm of noise—shouts, prayers, sobs, the static crackle of hundreds of vox-casters trying to cut through interference.
News crews clustered in shattered intersections, their cameras trembling in the hands of stunned operators. Lenses cracked, frames overloaded by the sheer scale of what they filmed. For the first time in history, billions of humans on Earth would see a Titan not as a rumor or myth—but as reality.

“By God, it’s—it’s the size of a mountain,” a German anchor stammered in raw disbelief, his voice carrying across feeds that reached Tokyo, New York, Cape Town.
“No—bigger. It’s… it’s a walking fortress.”

Citizens who had refused evacuation stared up from ruined streets, their fear briefly eclipsed by awe. Families huddled together, half whispering prayers, half too stunned to speak. A boy clutched his mother’s sleeve and pointed as the Imperator raised one arm, the Hellstorm cannon mounted upon it casting a shadow like a skyscraper bending in the wind.

Even the Pro Heroes, veterans of combat against monstrous villains, felt themselves reduced to children. Mirko stood frozen for the first time in her life, her usual grin gone, jaw slack. Cementoss whispered, “A city… carrying a gun…”

Bakugo was silent, fists trembling not with rage but with the overwhelming realization that for the first time in his life—his fury was meaningless beside this scale of war.

The Solar Auxilia on the ground dropped to one knee, their vox-units screaming with static as command channels tried to regulate panic. To them, this was not just another war machine—it was the Emperor’s will made manifest, even without the Emperor present.

Inside bunkers, citizens whispered the names that spread like fire across the vox:
“Imperator Titan. Magnificum Incendius. Legio Ignatum.”

The cameras shook again as the other god-engines, smaller yet still vast, formed ranks around their towering sibling. A single Reaver Titan shifted position, and the groan of its actuators sounded like mountains moving.

To the billions watching across the globe, this moment was seared into history: the day Earth saw gods descend to make war.

The silence ended with a scream.

The Great Unclean One bellowed from its ruptured cavern, its voice bubbling with rot and plague, making flesh slough from the bones of those who stood too close. Thousands of poxwalkers and daemon-beasts surged forward in waves, rivers of bile and pus rolling with them.

And then the Titan weapons spoke.

The Apocalypse Missile Launcher on Magnificum Incendius’ carapace flared first, hurling an entire city block’s worth of ordnance in a single salvo. The night sky vanished in fire, whole boulevards of plaguebeasts atomized in the maelstrom.

The Titan’s right arm descended—its Hellstorm Cannon igniting with a furnace-bright core before vomiting a torrent of incandescent destruction. The stream of energy carved a swathe through the daemon horde, flesh and ichor turning instantly to ash and molten slag.

On its left, the Plasma Annihilator thundered. Three sun-hot bolts screamed down into the earth, each one detonating with a miniature nuclear brilliance. Subway tunnels collapsed in cascades, obliterating entire veins of the gore-nest.

The carapace weaponry followed:

The Inferno Gun bathed avenues in seas of flame, cleansing corruption in burning tides.

The Quake Cannon fired, the shockwave alone toppling daemon engines and rupturing the ground in concentric fissures.

The Vulcan Mega-Bolter roared like a storm, its thousands of shells per second stitching walls of fire through anything small enough to move.

The Plasma Destructor fired in long arcs, cutting down lesser daemons like blades of light slicing wheat.

And at the Imperator’s highest point, the Vortex Support Missile Pod began to cycle, its warheads humming with energies not meant for mortals to perceive.

 

Around it, the lesser god-engines joined the symphony. Reavers leveled their Gatling Blasters and Volcano Cannons, Warhounds darted between ruins with Turbo Lasers spitting, and Warlords loomed as bulwarks of annihilation.

The battlefield was remade in minutes. Where once had stood a city drowning in corruption, now there was only a sea of fire, molten stone, and the howls of daemons torn apart by weapons that could crack continents.

And yet, from the heart of the breach, the Great Unclean One laughed still, its wounds knitting with rivers of pus and disease, its presence feeding on the warp-rent gore-nest beneath Berlin.
The Titans advanced, every footfall an earthquake, as mortals and heroes alike looked on in fear and awe.

The war for Berlin had become a war of gods.

 

The air was poison. Even through the filters of his helm, Russ tasted it, thick as rancid blood and heavy with rot. Every breath was a challenge to his body’s perfection, every moment a test of the fire in his soul. Around him the men of the Solar Auxilia held fast to their guns, forming firing lines along the broken avenues, pouring fire into the tide of poxwalkers that clambered from every pit and sewer grate. Their courage was iron, their discipline unshaken, but Russ knew the truth—without him, without a shield of flesh and spirit to hold back what came, the walls of this city would break in an hour.

And it was coming.

The earth bulged and split with every step of the Great Unclean One. Its swollen mass filled the avenue like a living mountain, its flesh rippling with sores that birthed daemons as easily as a wound oozed pus. Its laughter was a tide of sickness, echoing through the shattered city until glass trembled and men vomited blood from the sound alone. A Titan could bring it down, yes, but Russ saw the angles of war with the instinct of his father’s forge—one salvo would scour Berlin from the map. The kill would cost too much.

That left him.

He bared his teeth in a grin that was equal parts defiance and joy. So be it. The Wolf King had hunted worse than this in the dark of Fenris’ seas. No war-machine, no calculus of artillery, no walls of stone—just man, blade, and beast. That was his truth. That was the way of Russ.

“Form on me!” His voice cut through the roar of war like a blade. Around him, the strange allies fate had placed in his hand moved to obey. The German hero Eisenchild tightened his gauntleted fists. Mirko spat, ears flat, her grin a mirror of Russ’ own, savage and fearless. Fatgum’s vast bulk anchored the line, Cementoss raised jagged barricades from the shattered streets, and the four students hovered near, faces pale but wills unbroken. Bakugo growled curses under his breath, already sparking with sweat and nitroglycerine, while Shoji spread his limbs wide to shield the others. Kaminari’s hands trembled with lightning, and
Tamaki, quiet as a shadow, shifted his flesh into alien weapons.

They were children compared to him, ants beside a wolf, but they stood. And for that, Russ gave them the gift of his respect.

The ground convulsed as the daemon lurched forward. Russ drew Mjalnar in a single motion, the blade keening as if hungry for daemon-blood, runes flaring in the toxic gloom. He strode to meet the beast, every step a hammer blow against the earth, cloak snapping in the corrupted wind.
“Stay close to the line,” Russ barked over his shoulder, eyes never leaving the monstrosity. “Do not falter. Strike the spawn, not the father. The fat one is mine.”

The daemon bellowed, a spray of pus and phlegm washing over the street, dissolving men to skeletons in an instant. Russ plunged through the tide without slowing, his armour blistering, his flesh already knitting from where bile had eaten into it. He laughed, loud and sharp, a sound like an animal defying the hunt.

He struck.

Mjalnar bit deep into the daemon’s leg, a gash the length of a battle tank tearing through its suppurating flesh. The creature howled and swung its rusted cleaver the size of a hab-block, smashing through buildings and Auxilia alike. Russ caught it on his blade, braced and roaring, feet carving trenches in the stone as the blow drove him back a dozen meters. His shoulder jarred, his bones sang with strain, but he held.

Then he pushed back.

He spun, carving the daemon’s arm at the joint, ichor raining in steaming torrents that stank of a thousand corpses. Around him, the battle surged. Mirko leapt upon a poxwalker twice her size, snapping its spine with a kick that shook its rotting frame apart. Eisen tore into the lesser daemons with blows that cracked bone and burst flesh, his fists glowing with iron light. Cementoss raised walls that split advancing hordes, buying seconds at a time before waves of filth tore them down. Fatgum waded into the swarm, his body absorbing their claws and bites, swelling with their hatred until he burst it back in a shockwave that painted the streets with viscera.

Bakugo screamed his defiance at the sky as his explosions carved gaps in the horde. Kaminari hurled bolts into the masses, arcs of light burning plague-things to ash. Shoji shielded Tamaki, who in turn struck out with strange chimeric limbs, piercing, tearing, and shielding all at once. They were fragile, yes, untested—but Russ saw in them the same fire that burned in the warriors of Fenris. They fought because they must.

That was enough.

The daemon reeled and struck again, its belly splitting open to disgorge a river of filth-born spawn. Russ hurled himself into it, every blow of Mjalnar a storm, every strike carving another canyon of gore. His laughter rang against the daemon’s howl, louder, wilder, alive with the thrill of the hunt.
And all the while, above them, the Titans stood as monuments of destruction, their fire focused elsewhere as Leman Russ dueled the great unclean one. This was a duel of flesh and spirit, of daemon and primarch, of wolf and plague.

Russ spat blood into the dirt and raised his sword high. “Come then, carrion king! Face me as prey faces the hunter!”
And with that cry, the Wolf King threw himself at the Great Unclean One, the city of Berlin burning around them.

The city was gone around them. Not in fire, not yet—though the stink of burning clung to every brick—but in the way a hunting ground is erased by predator and prey. Nothing else mattered in the world but the two of them: the Wolf King and the Great Unclean One.

Russ moved like a storm, his bulk shaking the earth, yet his blade work was fast as a Fenrisian gale. Mjalnar carved arcs of pale fire through the daemon’s blubberous flesh, spraying ichor that hissed on the cobblestones. He struck the legs, the belly, the throat when he could reach it. And each time he cut, the thing laughed—wounds sealing with maggot-flesh, with slime, with bile that congealed into new forms.
The daemon swung its rusted cleaver in reply, and Russ met it with both hands on his blade. The impact jarred his bones like thunder rolling through his body. He staggered but did not fall. Instead, he snarled and shoved the weapon aside, his armour groaning, his muscles aflame.
“You’ll not break me, beast,” Russ growled, and lunged forward.

He carved the daemon’s belly open once more. Pox-flesh spilled onto the street in a tide of writhing children of plague. They clawed at his legs, their touch burning like acid. Russ roared and stamped, breaking them beneath his boots even as the daemon’s titanic hand closed around him.

Fingers like tree-trunks squeezed, bones cracked, ceramite plates bent and split. Russ howled—not in pain, but in wrath—and drove Mjalnar upward. The blade burst through the daemon’s palm, severing fingers in a spray of corrupt blood. He dropped, rolled, came up snarling with his eyes wild and his teeth bared.

The daemon laughed still. Its voice was thunder in a graveyard, bubbling, wet, full of mockery.
“Little wolf. Little son of the False Emperor. You bleed as all mortals bleed. Your bones will feed the garden.”

Russ spat blood and grinned through it. “You’ll find wolf-bones hard to swallow.”

They clashed again. Cleaver and sword, rust and rune, filth and fire. The daemon’s belly shook with every blow, folds of blubber splitting, steaming entrails slapping onto the ground. Russ’ armour was shredded, great gouges carved through it. His shoulder bled freely. His leg dragged. And still he pressed on, driving the beast back step by step.
For every cut he struck, the daemon returned one. The cleaver carved into his thigh, nearly severing it; Russ fought on, limping, roaring. The beast’s tongue lashed him, wrapping around his torso, bile dripping into his lungs. Russ bit it clean off and spat it back into its face.

He was a ruin of blood and fury, his blade heavy in his hands. But his eyes burned still, wild and golden, defying the dark.
And then, in the blur of battle, as the daemon’s shadow fell over him, he heard it.

A voice, clear as water in the desert of his mind.
“Russ. Brother. Hold.”

The Wolf King froze for half a heartbeat, blade raised. Not in shock from the voice itself, but from who it was. He knew it as he knew his own.

Magnus The Red.

The one who in some darker skein of fate would be his bitterest enemy. Yet here, in this world, in this hour of need, it was no enemy who spoke. It was his brother.
“You are not alone in this hunt.”

The daemon roared and raised its cleaver. Russ’ lips peeled back from his teeth in a feral smile. His laughter shook the night once more.
“Then let us bring it down together.”

And he hurled himself forward into the beast’s shadow, Mjalnar blazing, with the fire of his brother burning now in his heart.

The streets of Berlin were fire and blood. Every subway tunnel had vomited forth plague, every sewer poured horrors onto the boulevards, and the defenders were breaking. Solar Auxilia tanks burned where daemon bile had corroded their armour. Astartes fought in knots of gold, black, and grey, their bolters spitting until barrels melted. Civilians screamed as they were herded past the barricades, the lines buckling beneath the endless tide.

Russ still stood, a defiant island in the storm. His armour hung in strips, his body was cut and bleeding, but Mjalnar rose and fell ceaselessly, carving fire into rot. Before him loomed the Great Unclean One, its laughter drowning even the clash of battle.

Then the daemon’s shadow shifted. Its pustule-slick eyes rolled upward, distracted.

The sky had torn.

Not with fire from orbit, nor the thunder of drop pods. This was something else—impossible light, coiling skeins of crimson and gold unraveling the heavens. Every soldier and hero froze for an instant, heads craning skyward as if some colossal wound had been ripped into reality itself.

From it poured warriors.

Thousands of crimson-armoured giants, runes burning along their pauldrons and helms, their bolters and blades flaring with warp-light. They descended in pillars of psychic fire, their chants rolling like thunder, their formation perfect, their banners snapping as though in a wind only they could feel. The Thousand Sons had come.

And at their heart—

Magnus the Red.

He was a tower of flame and thought, taller than any of his brothers bar Vulkan, his single eye burning like a star. His arrival was an apocalypse of light, cobblestones cracking under his landing, reality itself groaning as it tried to contain his presence. Sorcerous wards unfurled across the battlefield in the instant of his coming, shielding the battered lines. Daemons shrieked as their forms warped and flickered, undone by his will alone.

Russ turned, his teeth bared, his golden eyes meeting the burning cyclopean gaze. For a heartbeat, the two brothers simply looked at one another—the wolf drenched in blood, the sorcerer cloaked in flame.
Then Magnus raised his staff, crimson light pouring from its tip, and his voice rang across the battlefield:
“BROTHER. LET US END THIS FILTH TOGETHER!”

Russ’ answering roar was a wolf’s, wild and joyous. “Aye, Magnus! Stand with me!”

The Wolf and the Crimson King turned as one upon the carrion god before them. Divided in life, united in duty.

Notes:

Yes Magnus is stationed in Asia, but not only is he my favorite character, he is also the strongest psyker amongst the primarchs, which will mean he will often show up in other battles around the globe, and since the Thousand sons are by far the smallest legion, there will often be squads of them split up around the world as well.

Chapter 12: The Wolf and The Magi

Summary:

the first of many battles in this war has been won, at a cost.

Chapter Twelve – The Wolf and the Magi

The battlefield reeked of rot. From the ruins of Berlin, the monstrous bulk of the Great Unclean One heaved itself upright once more, entrails spilling like ropes across broken stone. Its cavernous mouth opened, and laughter bellowed forth—wet, gurgling, mocking.

“I… am Khorbax the Glistening Maw,” it thundered, pus-slick tongue lolling between fangs the size of tanks. “Your defiance feeds me. Your deaths will birth my garden.”
Russ spat blood onto the ground and snarled, “You’ll find no garden here, beast. Only a pyre.”

He lunged, Mjalnar flashing like a bolt of winter lightning, carving through a blubbery fold of the daemon’s hide. Black-green ichor poured forth, stinking of centuries of rot. Khorbax bellowed and swung a massive rusted cleaver, the force of it blasting Russ back through a half-collapsed cafe.

Then fire answered.

Magnus strode forward, his staff raised, his single eye alight with fury. A tidal wave of psychic flame roared from his hand, searing through diseased flesh, the warp-fire burning true where mortal weaponry faltered. Khorbax staggered, its bulk igniting, and its laughter became a scream.

Side by side, the brothers pressed the assault. Russ darted and struck with primal speed, his blade hewing open boils the size of men, severing tendons and tendonous growths. Magnus countered every swing of the daemon’s cleaver with sorcerous shields and retaliatory blasts of telekinetic force, hurling rubble and molten steel like weapons.

But Khorbax did not die easily. From its wounds burst clouds of plague flies, swarms so thick they blotted out the sun. Russ vanished in the cloud, coughing, only for Magnus to sweep his staff and conjure a cyclone of fire, burning the swarm to ash.

“Stay on your feet, Wolf!” Magnus barked.

Russ burst from the smoke, laughing through blood. “I was born for this fight!”

The duel raged on. Every blow Russ landed seemed only to birth more flesh, more corruption, but the daemon was slowing. Magnus’ spells stripped away its immortality, unraveling its essence strand by strand. With every strike, they pushed it back—first from the ruins, then from the plaza, then to the gaping wound in the earth from which it had come.

At last, Russ drove Mjalnar deep into the daemon’s gut, pinning it in place. Khorbax shrieked, clawing at him, crushing ceramite and splitting flesh. Russ refused to yield, muscles straining, fangs bared in a wolf’s grimace.

“MAGNUS!” he roared.

The Crimson King answered.

Magnus lifted his staff, gathering his will into a single, terrible point. Warp-light flared, the air warping, reality groaning under the weight of his power. In his hand, a spear of pure psychic force took shape—burning white, edged in red, screaming with the fury of a supernova.

“This is your end, daemon,” Magnus hissed.

He hurled the lance.

It pierced Khorbax through its gaping maw, shooting out the back of its skull in a flare brighter than daybreak. The daemon convulsed, its laughter becoming a bubbling gurgle. Its form began to unravel, not into the warp, not into banishment—Magnus’ sorcery burned deeper, consuming the daemon’s very essence.

Khorbax’s scream echoed across the city, across the warp itself—then cut off, utterly. No dispersal, no return. Nothing.

For the first time in millennia, a Great Unclean One had been truly destroyed.

Silence fell.

Russ wrenched Mjalnar free and staggered back, panting, blood dripping into the dust. Magnus lowered his staff, his single eye dim, exhaustion etched into his titanic frame. For a moment, they looked at each other.
Russ broke the silence first, spitting blood and giving a grin sharp as a wolf’s. “Not bad… for a cyclops.”

Magnus’ lip curved in a rare, faint smile. “And not bad for a savage.”

The brothers stood side by side as the fires guttered and the defenders roared in triumph. Berlin was broken, scarred beyond recognition—but it still stood.

And Khorbax the Glistening Maw would never rise again.

The daemon was gone.

Its corpse did not remain, nor did its laughter echo in the ruined city. Instead, silence followed, broken only by the ragged breaths of the warriors who had stood against it. For the first time in days, Berlin’s air seemed to clear, the oppressive rot receding.

And then the ground shuddered.

Far below, in the lightless caverns where Khorbax’s summoning had first rooted itself, the gore nest pulsed erratically. A tumor of the warp, a mass of flesh, bone, and corrupted reality, it had once spawned endless plagues and horrors into the city above. Now it writhed like a dying heart, collapsing in upon itself. Warp-light bled from its fissures, boiling, hissing, and then—imploding with a thunderous crack.
The nest was gone.

Above, the tide broke. The seas of plaguebearers faltered, their ranks thinning. Pox-walkers shambled and fell still, empty husks without the foul will that had bound them. What had once seemed endless now dwindled into a scattering, a stream of stragglers cut down by bolter fire and hero’s fists alike.

The defenders of Berlin looked to the sky. For the first time, they saw it free of swarms and shadows. Hope rippled through their ranks.

But beyond the city, beyond the cheers of soldiers and students, the truth pulsed in silence.

Far above Earth, in orbit, augur ghosts recorded what no mortal eye could see. Deep beneath the crust, hidden for months, three more hearts of corruption throbbed. Gore nests—deeper, seeded by the ascended league at the same time as the one in Berlin

One lay beneath the sands of Africa, at the roots of the ancient pyramids of Giza, twisting into impossible shapes.

Another spread its tendrils beneath Chicago’s foundation, bloated and waiting, the rivers starting to bleed red.

The last pulsed in the bedrock beneath Hong Kong, its veins already creeping toward the harbor, right beneath a roaring festival…tainted by excess

They beat in rhythm, slow and patient, waiting for the moment they would bloom.

The victory at Berlin was real—but it was only the beginning.

Notes:

I will often give greater deamons names and a gravitas to set the stage for massive battles, even though in canon many primarchs can fight and kill most greater deamons without a ton of hassle. but if there were no risks the story wouldn't be fun

Chapter 13: The Tombs of Monarchs, Words of Faith

Summary:

after the battle of berlin, we now switch gears to follow another group, the bearer of the word is now walking the sands of one of earths first civilizations

Chapter Thirteen-The Tombs of Monarchs, Words of Faith

The Egyptian sun beat down with a merciless glare, turning the sands into waves of gold and fire. In the distance, the pyramids cut the horizon, titanic silhouettes of stone that had endured millennia of conquest, collapse, and rebirth. Even the Primarchs, who had seen worlds beyond count, seemed to pause in their shadows.

Captain Celebrity adjusted his sunglasses, hovering lazily a few feet off the ground as sweat glistened on his forehead. “Man, to think even space faring god like warriors are fascinated by a few pyramids"

“Your levity is misplaced,” Lorgar Aurelian replied, his voice a sonorous echo, the cadence of a preacher addressing his flock. He walked at the head of the group, a squad of his Word Bearers trailing in crimson armor behind him. “These stones are not merely monuments. They are testimonies. Testimonies of faith, of vision, of the will of man to transcend the mere present. Do you not feel it?”

Jirou tugged at her earlobes, squinting up at the massive blocks of stone. “I feel heatstroke coming on.”

Kirishima barked a laugh. “Aw, come on, Jirou! This is manly as hell! Imagine hauling all this rock without cranes or power tools. These people were hardcore.”

“Not hardcore,” Lorgar corrected gently, his smile softening as he looked down at the red-haired student. “Faithful. Faith drove them. Faith lifted these stones higher than any slave’s back or lash could. Faith gives man strength greater than his flesh.”

“Or engineering,” another voice cut in, sharp and edged like steel. Perturabo’s arrival was never subtle—his Iron Warriors clanked into view, iron-grey armor gleaming harshly in the sun. The Lord of Iron himself walked beside them, dark eyes fixed on the pyramid before him. “Faith builds nothing but delusion. Stone endures because it was cut correctly. Angles measured, load-bearing ratios calculated. That is why this relic still stands, not some imagined whisper of gods.”

“Do you never tire of reducing beauty to numbers, brother?” Lorgar asked, tone soft but carrying an iron thread.

“I tire of your sermons,” Perturabo snapped, then looked toward the students. “Do not let his honeyed words mislead you. Respect what is real. What is strong.”

Awase leaned over to Todoroki, whispering, “Are they always like this?”

“Yes,” Todoroki said flatly, watching the two Primarchs with his usual unreadable stare. “And it seems inevitable.”

Kendo, ever the mediator, raised her hand politely as if in class. “Um, Lord Lorgar? If it’s okay—what did people believe the pyramids were for? Just tombs, or was it more?”

The Primarch’s eyes lit up. He turned to her as though she had offered him a golden key. “Ah, a question worth asking! Some say tombs, yes. But others, conduits—stairs to the heavens, rituals of passage for kings who sought eternity. Even now, their meaning endures, for belief shapes truth.”

“Belief shapes lies,” Perturabo muttered, arms crossed, his disdain simmering.

Captain Celebrity glanced at Kamui Woods and Yorimusha. “You guys following any of this?”

Kamui’s wooden features twisted in a rare grin. “I’m just glad he’s lecturing them and not us.”

Yorimusha only chuckled, hand on the hilt of his blade. “Let them learn. It is not every day students are taught history by demigods.”

Ibara, quiet until now, stepped forward, her vine-like hair twitching faintly. She knelt in the sand, pressing a hand to the soil. “But if faith left its mark here… I feel something else beneath.”

The air shifted.

Perturabo’s head turned sharply toward her, while Lorgar’s words faltered for the first time since they’d left Cairo.

The ground rumbled. Sand leapt in tiny fountains, trembling in a rhythm too precise to be a mere earthquake. The students stiffened, eyes darting to the pyramid’s shadow, while the heroes instinctively drew into formation.

Todoroki’s dual-colored gaze narrowed. “That’s not natural.”

Kirishima clenched his fists. “Something’s coming!”

Even Lorgar fell silent, eyes lifting to the horizon. Perturabo’s hand dropped to the Hammer mag-locked at his side, his Iron Warriors bracing with the same discipline as their gene-sire.
The tremor deepened into a bass-thunder, like mountains dragging themselves across stone. Then, at last, the silhouettes appeared through the shimmering haze of desert heat.
Four towering colossi of steel and adamantine strode across the sands on titanic, piston-driven legs. Their shadows fell across the dunes like walking fortresses. The lead machine bore the heraldry of Legio Krytos, its carapace painted in harsh greens and battered brass, sigils of conquest etched into its plating. Across its chest, in letters larger than a man, its name blazed: Apostate of Days.

“Holy—” Jirou’s words cut short as she craned her neck higher, higher, until the vast hound-headed silhouette eclipsed the sun.

Mirrored in its wake came three more Warhounds, their backs bristling with turbolaser destructors, their shoulders crowned with heraldic banners that whipped violently in the desert wind. A pack, running tight formation like wolves across the endless sand.

Cement cracked under the pressure of their footfalls. The dunes flattened in their wake. The pyramids themselves seemed dwarfed as the Titans slowed their pace, circling the monuments with the slow, predatory grace of beasts assessing newcomers in their territory.

“They’re… on our side, right?” Awase asked, his voice caught somewhere between awe and panic.

“Indeed,” Lorgar said, spreading his arms as if to present the gods of steel to his impromptu congregation. “Behold the strength of the Omnissiah’s will made manifest. Walking cathedrals of war. The guardians of your cities.”

Perturabo scoffed, though his eyes lingered longer than he intended on the Apostate of Days. “Don’t romanticize them, brother. They’re weapons. Kill-machines. Their faith lies only in firepower.”

“Is that so different from you?” Lorgar replied smoothly.

The Warhound pack slowed to a halt before the gathering. The lead Titan lowered its head fractionally, vox-grilles rumbling with a machine-voice that rolled like thunder over the sands:
“IDENTIFY.”

One of Lorgar’s Word Bearers strode forward, his voice amplified through a vox-horn. “Word Bearers of the Seventeenth! Sons of the Emperor, in company with the Lord of Iron and the Bearer of the Word!”

There was a pause. The Titans stood like statues, weapons humming faintly as their cores cycled. Then the Apostate of Days let out a grinding roar of machinery, a sound almost like approval, and the pack resumed its circle—this time enclosing the pyramids in a protective arc.

Kirishima’s jaw dropped. “Dude. Those are like… skyscrapers with guns.”

Captain Celebrity smirked, though sweat was still running down his temple. “Guess I’m not the biggest guy in the room anymore.”

For once, even Todoroki allowed himself to pause, staring at the metal gods as though imprinting the sight forever in memory.

The world had felt so fragile after Berlin—heroes breaking, armies bleeding, cities nearly falling. But here, in the sands of Egypt, the ground itself carried the weight of guardians older and harsher than human frailty.

Lorgar turned to the students, his voice a velvet baritone against the thrum of Titans. “Children, remember this moment. Faith may inspire, and stone may endure. But in the end, it is unity—machine and man, warrior and worker, believer and skeptic—that holds the line against the abyss.”

Perturabo grunted but did not contradict him this time.

And above them, the Apostate of Days raised its head to the sky, engines rumbling like a hymn to war, as the desert winds carried the faint, fetid stink of something awakening beneath the sands.
The thunder of the Warhound pack faded into the dunes, their shadows still looming over the pyramids as silent guardians. With the immediate tension broken, the group pressed on, sand crunching beneath boots and sandals alike.

Lorgar walked at the head of the little procession, his armored bulk imposing yet oddly serene. In his hands, he carried a massive tome bound in thick leather, its edges gilded and worn by use. The Primarch did not need to read from it—his memory was flawless, each page already etched into his mind—but still he held it open, letting his voice flow like scripture across the desert.

“These stones,” Lorgar began, gesturing to the great pyramids as their shadow stretched long in the afternoon sun, “are not merely tombs. They are sermons of stone. The Egyptians of old raised them as eternal prayers to their gods, believing that through these monuments, their kings would stride into eternity.”

The students slowed, listening despite themselves.

“Each block was laid by countless hands—slaves, laborers, artisans. To them, this was not only toil. It was sacrifice. They poured their sweat, their blood, their short mortal lives into something greater than themselves. A gesture of unity, of belief that there was more than the mere flicker of life.”

Ibara clasped her hands together, eyes wide with awe. “It’s… like faith made into a mountain.”

Lorgar smiled faintly, the expression softened by genuine warmth. “Exactly so, child. Faith, no matter the form it takes, is the binding of the human spirit to something greater. Even if that faith is flawed, even if their gods were but myths, the pyramids remain. Stone endures longer than bone.”

Perturabo snorted from behind, crossing his arms. “You call superstition strength? They wasted generations on piles of rock while their people starved. It is proof of folly, not faith.”

But Lorgar did not rise to his brother’s bait. Instead, he turned the Iron Warrior’s dismissal into a pivot for his sermon.
“And yet… here they stand. While countless empires, armies, and kings are dust, these ‘piles of rock’ defy the grave. That is the lesson, my friends. Belief can build more lasting monuments than power alone.”

Even Todoroki, usually silent, found himself watching the pyramids with a new sort of focus, as if seeing them for the first time.

Jirou whispered to Kendo, “I never thought I’d actually care about history class…”

Lorgar went on, weaving not just facts, but parable. He spoke of the pharaohs who claimed divinity, the priests who bound society together, and the laborers whose toil was erased from memory yet remained etched in the stones themselves. He moved seamlessly from the ancient world to the present, comparing the eternal pyramids to the Imperium’s struggle to build a lasting bulwark against Chaos.
“There is power,” Lorgar said, his voice rising with the cadence of a practiced preacher, “in leaving behind more than yourself. A life is fleeting, a battle is forgotten, but what we build together—be it stone, empire, or trust—endures.”

The desert wind carried his words like a hymn. Even Perturabo, despite himself, fell silent.

Captain Celebrity raised an eyebrow, glancing at Kamui Woods. “You know, I hate to admit it, but he’s good. Like… really good. I almost believe him.”

Kamui nodded stiffly. “Almost.”

The desert heat pressed down upon them as the group ascended the weathered steps at the base of the Great Pyramid. Sand trickled loose under their boots, while the stone beneath was warm, almost alive with
the sun’s touch. The immensity of the structure was humbling; even the Primarchs’ towering statures were dwarfed by the ancient monument.

Perturabo crouched low at the base of a block, running his gauntleted fingers across the seams. His eyes, calculating and cold, traced every joint and angle. “Imperfect,” he muttered. “Crude in comparison to what could have been built with the right knowledge. Still…” He rose and stepped back, gaze lifting up the endless slope of stone. “…it has endured. That is its triumph.”

Lorgar, standing a few steps above, spread his arms as though addressing a congregation. The wind tugged at the pages of his tome. “And endurance, dear brother, is faith made manifest. Every block was a prayer—laid not by masons of skill, but by the faithful who believed that to raise their king’s tomb was to touch eternity. Imperfect, yes, yet transcendent in meaning.”

The students followed in their wake, craning their necks to take in the immensity. Kirishima whistled low. “Man, this is… hard to wrap my head around. People built this? Without tech, without quirks?”

“Stone, sweat, and will,” Lorgar replied, his voice warm. “That is the secret to all great works.” He rested a hand on the ancient block, reverent as though it were an altar. “Do you feel it? The weight of ages, pressing down not as burden but as witness. These stones remember.”

Awase ran a hand across the weathered limestone, brow furrowed. “Feels… solid. But not unbreakable.”

Perturabo chuckled darkly. “Nothing is unbreakable.” He began climbing, boots grinding against the slope, eyes flicking across the surface like an architect surveying blueprints. “The angle is near perfect. A marvel of geometry. But there is stress here, in the heartstone—”

“Brother,” Lorgar chided gently, “you look only for flaws. Yet even in flaws there is beauty.”

“Flaws,” Perturabo replied flatly, “are how a structure dies.”

The group reached a high platform, wind whipping harder at the exposed height. From here, Cairo stretched across the horizon, its towers glittering in the distance while the desert rolled endlessly away. The students were caught between awe and unease, their bodies small against the immensity of the monument.

Jirou shaded her eyes, looking up. “It’s so huge. Like it could last forever.”

The words had barely left her lips when the sound came—a deep, groaning crack, like the bones of the world splitting apart.

The stone beneath them shuddered violently. Sand cascaded down the slope in golden rivers, and from deep within the pyramid, a fissure erupted skyward, jagged and black. It split the structure from its base to

nearly halfway up, vomiting dust into the air as the ancient monument trembled.

“Everyone down!” Kamui Woods shouted, arms flaring into branches to steady the nearest students.

The fissure widened, the grinding of stone echoing across the desert like a wounded titan’s roar.

Perturabo’s eyes narrowed, and for the first time, his voice held a trace of unease. “This… is no natural fault.”

Lorgar closed his tome, his face a mask of grim recognition. “No. This is awakening.”

Notes:

I tried to capture Lorgar properly, his ability to weave belief with fact is unparalleled and I tried my best. his dialogue was by far the hardest thing to write because I just feel he's so different from the rest of the primarchs

Chapter 14: The Lattice of Fate

Chapter fourteen-The Lattice of Fate

The pyramid groaned beneath them like a leviathan stirring from a thousand-year slumber. What had begun as a single fissure widened into a jagged wound, black stone grinding against itself with the sound of a thousand teeth. Dust filled the air in choking clouds, the wind scattering it in whorls across the blistering sun.

The students clutched for balance as the stone heaved under their boots. Even the Astartes staggered, armored feet gouging into the ancient limestone for purchase.

Kirishima lost his footing first. A slab shuddered under him, tilting toward the abyss, and he pitched forward with a cry.

Lorgar’s tome fell from his hand, fluttering open as it tumbled into the chasm. The Primarch’s arm lashed out like a steel trap, seizing Kirishima by the wrist and hauling him back against his chest. “Hold fast, child!” His voice rang like a sermon shouted over a storm, commanding, unshaken.

“Brace the students!” Perturabo bellowed, his own stance widening, boots biting into fractured stone. He moved with mechanical precision, calculating angles as the pyramid’s shifting threatened to cast them all into ruin. “Cement the weak points! Lock your footing!”

“On it!” Awase barked, hands glowing as he fused loose fragments of stone into a temporary hold. His face was pale, sweat stinging his eyes, but his quirk snapped into action with desperation.

Kamui Woods exploded branches into anchor lines, wrapping them around jutting stones and pulling students into his reach. Yorimusha stood planted like a tree against the tremors, arms spread wide to catch anyone who slipped.

The pyramid shook again—harder this time. Massive slabs shifted as though the whole structure were breathing, exhaling centuries of dust and sand. Todoroki dropped to one knee, ice blasting across a gaping crack to seal it. The ice cracked immediately under strain, but it gave the group precious seconds.

Jirou clutched her ears as a deep, guttural sound reverberated through the stones—a rumble like laughter, mocking and endless, rolling up from the pyramid’s bowels. “What the hell was that?” she gasped, voice lost in the roar of grinding stone.

“A voice,” Lorgar answered grimly, his eyes narrowing, one arm still shielding Kirishima. “The heartbeat of what festers below.”

The pyramid bucked once more. Astartes clung to their footing, but even their massive forms swayed, armor scraping against the ancient stone. Perturabo’s mind raced, calculations of collapse and stability colliding with the brutal reality that this was not mere architecture failing—it was awakening.

“Protect the students above all else!” Lorgar thundered, his words carrying the weight of unyielding command. He shoved Kirishima toward Kendo, ensuring the boy’s footing, before spreading his arms as if to shield them all. “Do not falter!”

The apex of the pyramid shuddered, cracks racing like black veins toward the heavens. Each fissure vomited dust and stone, the sound deafening, as if the earth itself was screaming.
Below, Cairo stirred—sirens wailing faintly from the city as the titans of Legio Krytos turned their heads toward the pyramids, engines howling in warning. The Warhound Apostate of Days let out a vox-blare, its machine-voice rising like a wolf’s howl across the sands as they turn and sprint back.

High above on the pyramid’s crumbling slope, the group clung to life. Heroes barked orders, students strained against fear and stone alike, and the Primarchs—giants among mortals—stood unyielding, holding the line not against an enemy they could strike, but against the treachery of the earth itself.

The mountain of stone heaved again, splitting wider. Dust swallowed the sun.
And from the depths below, something stirred.

The apex of the pyramid gave one last groan, then shattered.

Stone screamed as it was torn apart from within, exploding outward in a hail of debris that blotted out the sun. From the wound in history itself, blue crystal speared skyward, jagged spires punching through the limestone like the claws of a buried titan. The gleaming shards pulsed with sickly light, radiating impossible geometry that seared the eyes to look upon.

“Hold them!” Perturabo thundered, seizing Yorimusha and Todoroki by their cloaks, leaping from the breaking slope in a single bound. His bulk smashed into the sands below, carving a crater, before he set the heroes down roughly but alive.

Lorgar followed, carrying three of the students at once—Kirishima under one arm, Jirou and Ibara in the other, his voice still crying a litany over the chaos. “The Word shall not break, even in the shadow of madness!”

Astartes vaulted with them, steel gauntlets locking around heroes and students alike as they fled the collapsing giant. Kamui Woods lashed branches around Awase and Kendo, hauling them clear as the pyramid’s summit split like a rotten fruit.

From the wound in its heart, the world screamed.

With a shriek of a thousand thousand voices, the first of them emerged. Blue-feathered horrors, their forms half-bird and half-nightmare, flapped into the sky on wings of smoke and fire. Behind them soared Tzaangors upon floating disks, shrieking praises to the Architect of Fate, their weapons blazing warp-fire.

The desert itself seemed to recoil as they poured forth.

Then came the flood. Red and blue Horrors erupted in their tens of thousands, scattering across the dunes like rabid hounds loosed from a cage, claws scrabbling, jaws slavering. Their laughter was a chorus of madness, each shriek splitting into two, then into four, echoing across the sand.

Kirishima, still breathless from Lorgar’s grip, staggered beside Jirou and Kendo, eyes wide. “What the hell are those things!?”

Lorgar’s golden eyes burned as he set him down, the desert’s wind whipping his robes. “The servants of the Changer of Ways,” he intoned grimly. “Daemons of Tzeentch.”

Already the horde turned its attention outward, flowing like water down the dunes toward the glittering sprawl of Cairo. The ground shook beneath their stampede, the shrieks of countless voices drowning out even the distant wails of the city’s alarms.

Perturabo’s jaw tightened, his voice low but thunderous as he watched the tidal wave of horrors surge toward civilization. “Cairo will be drowned in fire and blood if we do not stem this tide.”
Above, the crystal spire pulsed again, its jagged edges casting fractured rainbows of madness across the sands. More daemons clawed their way free, every moment doubling the numbers pouring into the desert.

Kamui Woods stepped forward, eyes wide, knuckles pale. “We—we can’t stop all of that!”

“No,” Perturabo growled, drawing his hammer with a grinding hiss. “But we can buy Cairo time.”

Lorgar’s hand rested on his crozius, his face solemn but alight with unshakable fire. “Steel your hearts, children. The hour of trial has come. Stand as witnesses—and endure.”

The daemons shrieked, their horde breaking into a sprint, the sands of Egypt trembling beneath their charge.

The Primarchs stepped forward, side by side, as the first wave of madness descended.

The sands of Egypt churned like a living sea.

From horizon to horizon, the Tzeentchian horde flooded forward—feathered monstrosities on screaming disks, packs of chittering Horrors breaking apart and multiplying with every death, tides of warped flesh and color that seemed to bleed into the air itself. Their cries drowned out the desert winds, a choir of madness bearing down on Cairo.

Upon a dune overlooking the Nile, the defenders formed a single, unyielding line.

“Blow every crossing!” Perturabo’s voice cracked like thunder across the dunes, vox relays carrying it to every Iron Warrior within Cairo’s walls. “No bridge remains, no span across the Nile stands! I want nothing left but fire and rubble!”

Explosions rumbled seconds later, plumes of dust and flame rising in the distance as the last bridges buckled into the river. The Iron Warriors stationed throughout the city swarmed to the banks of the Nile, siege
lines forming with the mechanical precision of their Primarch. Every turret, every gun emplacement, every scrap of artillery was dragged to bear as mortals, both native Egyptians and Auxilla scrambled to defensive positions.

And still, Perturabo’s eyes never left the flood of daemons. His massive frame loomed over the students huddled near Lorgar, his hammer resting across one armored shoulder. “They’ll reach us in moments,” he said flatly. “We will not hold them long.”

At his side, Lorgar raised his crozius and began to intone words that rolled like deep thunder, a sermon drawn from neither Imperial truth nor ancient creed, but something uniquely his own. His voice wove a spell of iron resolve, binding the terrified hearts of students and heroes alike. The daemonic chorus seemed almost muted against his words.

The ground shuddered.

From the west, three Warhound Titans sprinted across the desert, each stride devouring hundreds of meters. Once four strong, the pack was diminished; one had been torn apart in the opening surge, dragged down into the dunes by daemons in a storm of warp-fire. The survivors were scarred, their carapaces blackened, plating gouged and scorched—but their reactor hearts still burned hot. They came at full tilt, like gods of iron racing to meet the storm.

They halted at the dune, engines screaming, weapons primed.

The defenders were arrayed:

Three Warhound Titans, venting heat like beasts as Turbo Lasers spun.

Two Primarchs, their presence radiant—Perturabo, a wall of iron will, and Lorgar, a voice that shook the soul.

Six students: Todoroki, Jirou, Kirishima, Awase, Kendo, Ibara—fear and fire in their eyes.

Three Pro Heroes: Captain Celebrity, Kamui Woods, Yorimusha,.

Ten Astartes, half Iron Warriors, half Word Bearers, their bolters raised, chainswords ready.

One line against a tidal wave of madness.

“Not minutes,” Perturabo rumbled, lowering his hammer, eyes fixed on the horizon. “Seconds.”

Kirishima swallowed hard, fists trembling, his quirk already hardening across his skin. “Seconds’ll do.”

The first shrieking daemons tore over the dunes. The sky lit with warp-flame. The Titans raised their cannons, the Primarchs roared, and Cairo held its breath as the desert erupted into war.

Chapter 15: The Sands of Change Meet the Hounds of War

Summary:

let the war begin

Notes:

this is the first of a two part upload I'm doing, when you finish reading both parts feel free to hate me mauhahaha

Chapter 15- The sands of change meet the hounds of war

The hastily dug trench walls of woven vine and wood groaned as bolter fire rattled from behind them, Astartes kneeling low to keep their fields of fire steady. The heroes mirrored them—Todoroki’s ice already slick along the trench lip to provide makeshift bulwarks, Jirou with her jacks out to sense the vibrations of the ground, Kirishima clenched in full armor-hardening. Ibara’s vines wove thicker and thicker until the wall
resembled a living bastion, green and pulsing, holding back the desert winds and daemonic flame.

“Steady your lines!” barked Forrix of the Iron Warriors, his bolter booming. “Measured fire! Do not waste a single round!”

The horde was nearly upon them, their shrieks rising to fever pitch, when the earth itself shook with a different fury.
It came from behind.

A roar of sheer rage, more beast than man, shattered across the line. The students flinched; even the Astartes staggered as though struck. The Word Bearers crossed themselves instinctively while the Iron Warriors gritted their teeth.

Then the trench erupted.

The crouched Astartes at the rear were suddenly used as steps, their armored backs buckling as other giants vaulted from them, launching themselves high into the air. Bolters were dropped, chainaxes raised, chainblades howling. They landed beyond the trench in sprays of sand and gore—World Eaters.

“BLOOD AND IRON!”

At their head came Angron. The Red Angel was a thunderhead of muscle and armor, vaulting from the sands with an inhuman bound. He landed like a meteor, chainaxes in both hands, his bellow louder than the Titans’ machine spirits. Daemons shattered before him, Tzaangors split in half with every strike, Horrors crushed underfoot as his rampage carved a red swath through the thickest of the horde.
Behind him poured his sons, two full companies of World Eaters driving their land raiders into the dunes at full speed, their ramps disgorging warriors into the storm. They came screaming, not with madness but with fury tempered by years of conquest—pre-Heresy killers, still loyal, still bound in brotherhood. Chainaxes rose and fell in time to their Primarch’s roar.

The trench line shook as Captain Celebrity and Kamui Woods stared in awe. Todoroki froze, breath misting as he took in the sight of Angron tearing daemons limb from limb with nothing but brute strength.
Even the seasoned Astartes of other legions felt their stomachs tighten. The World Eaters’ presence was always overwhelming—like fighting beside a living avalanche.

Then two figures vaulted in with them, quirks blazing.

Vlad King charged, his veins bulging crimson as streams of hardened blood extended into jagged spears from his arms. He flung them like javelins, skewering Horrors before reforming them instantly in his hands. His control was surgical, his stride relentless, his crimson weapons glistening in the moonlight.
Beside him was Shishido, the Lion Hero, bounding forward with his mane wild, claws extending. His roar harmonized strangely with Angron’s, a feral counterpart to the Primarch’s godlike wrath. He dove into the horde, slicing through Tzaangor flesh, his claws sparking against daemonsteel weapons.

Angron’s laugh—half fury, half ecstasy—rolled across the desert as his axes blurred. Every sweep scattered a dozen daemons in pieces. Where Perturabo and Lorgar anchored the line with logic and faith, Angron smashed the tide apart by sheer presence.

From the trench, Kirishima gaped. “He—he’s—”
“—a Primarch,” muttered Forrix. His voice was flat, grim, yet tinged with awe. “And you’d best pray he never turns that wrath on us.”

Perturabo slammed his hammer against the sand, searing the air with sparks. “Hold formation! Let the World Eaters break their charge—when the line folds, we strike!”

Lorgar’s voice rose above the chaos, his crozius raised high, his sermon louder than daemonic howls. “Steel and soul as one! The Word endures! The Word endures!”

And with Angron leading the slaughter, the desert itself became a cauldron of fury.

The desert shuddered with every step of the Titans.

The Warhound pack stepped across the trench dug dunes like metal hunting hounds, their frames towering over the battlefield, sun glinting off void shields. The lead Titan, Apostate of Days, raised its turbo-lasers skyward, unleashing blinding beams that carved swathes of Horrors from existence. Another strode beside it, vulcan megabolter spitting storms of rounds that churned the sands into rivers of ichor.
Each shot shook the ground, deafening even the Astartes in their helmets. Entire clusters of Tzaangors vanished in explosions of violet flame, their crystalline weapons scattering like shattered glass.

But the daemons didn’t break.
They scattered.

At first it was subtle. A few Tzaangors darting sideways, vaulting around Angron’s rampage. A knot of pink Horrors, ignoring the towering form of Lorgar, scampering into the dunes. Dozens more, slipping in pairs and trios, weaving between the fury of the World Eaters as though the Legion wasn’t even there.

Angron noticed. He tore a Tzaangor apart in both hands, roaring, “COWARDS! FACE ME!” His axes cleaved another dozen, but the tide didn’t answer—they flowed around him.
Todoroki’s breath fogged against his lips as he tracked them. Every time one slipped through the World Eaters’ cordon, the trench lit up in bolter fire, vines snapping, blood-spears stabbing, flames erupting. Dozens fell. Yet dozens more made it past.

“They’re not fighting us,” Todoroki whispered, voice barely audible beneath the thunder of guns. “They’re trying to get past us.”

Jirou’s eyes widened as her jacks vibrated against the sands. “He’s right—they’re not pressing—they’re flowing around.”

Kirishima slammed a fist against the trench wall. “Then where the hell are they going?!”

Forrix cursed as he reloaded, his bolter barrel glowing red. “They’re running for the city.”

The realization spread like fire through the line. Cairo. The Nile. The millions who were evacuating through the streets as sirens blared.

“Focus fire on anything that gets past the front!” Perturabo bellowed, his hammer raised. His voice cracked through the vox as though the desert itself obeyed him. “Seal the bridges! No daemon reaches that river! Twenty million civilians count on us to hold the line so they can flee.”

“WORLD EATERS!” Angron’s voice drowned even the Titans’ weapons. “NO ONE ESCAPES!”

His sons obeyed without hesitation, their bodies like a dam of flesh and steel, chainaxes blurring, their fury so absolute it forced the horde to split wider and wider. They were the boulder in the river. But the river did not stop—it simply diverted, spreading thinner, faster, wider.

The trench erupted in chaos.

Vlad King hurled crimson spears like lightning, pinning Horrors that slipped through the cracks. Shishido slashed a leaping Tzaangor from mid-air, sand spraying as its corpse burned away. Kamui Woods’ arms lashed out like whips, dragging daemons down before they could vanish into the dunes.

Still more poured past.

Todoroki raised both hands, fire and ice flaring at once. His wall of flame seared the sands, his glacier of ice slammed into the sand with a crack like thunder. Dozens of daemons froze and shattered—but behind them, more followed. Always more.

Lorgar’s voice thundered across the trench, his crozius raised. “Stand firm! They will not pass you! You are the wall between mankind and the void!” His words filled the hearts of students and Astartes alike, steadied even shaking hands on bolters.

Above them, Apostate of Days fired again, its lasers burning like the wrath of the Emperor himself. Two more Warhounds strode in formation, their machine-spirits howling, their guns carving craters into the horde. Every impact lit the sands for hundreds of meters.

Yet the river did not stop.

It spilled. It spread. It ran for the Nile.

And every heartbeat, every second they fought, more and more slipped through.

Then the trench shook. Sand cascaded down the walls in rivulets, rifles rattling in desperate hands. Todoroki staggered against the wooden supports, frost blooming around his boots as the earth beneath them moved.

“What the hell—?” Jirou gasped, jacks quivering with the vibrations.

Then the dune split.

From the ruptured sand poured not dust or stone but flesh and feathers—daemons. Horrors and Tzaangors, their claws ripping through the desert like knives through cloth, erupted from below the trench line. They did not stop to fight. They ran.

Over the bank of the Nile.
Into the waters.

Thousands of them. Their shrieks turned the river black with wings and claws, blue fire boiling across its surface as the daemons plunged forward with unnatural speed. The Nile itself frothed with corruption, churning like a wound.

“NO!” Perturabo roared, his hammer smashing a Tzaangor flat, but his eyes were already on the far bank. The horde had outflanked them. Dug beneath their lines. Now the flood crested.

The first to meet them were mortals.

On the riverbank, under the shadow of Cairo’s skyline, soldiers of the Solar Auxilia stood shoulder to shoulder with Egyptian army regiments, their lasrifles glowing in the dusk. Civil defense units and Pro Heroes rallied together, police officers with pistols beside Auxilia in full carapace armor.

And when the daemons came ashore, they met steel.

Bolter fire roared, heavy stubbers chattered, and the night erupted in fire. Egyptian tanks—old but defiant—lined the avenues with the gleam of Imperial armor beside them, Leman Russ tanks rumbling into formation, their guns thunderous. Helicopters swooped down in squadrons, missile pods shrieking fire into the river. Above them, jets screamed through the sky, contrails crisscrossing as their payloads slammed into the daemonic horde with explosions so bright they lit the Nile like a sun.

The air itself burned. The stench of ozone and blood filled every breath.

Yet still they came.

Tzaangors leapt from the river like beasts, their crystalline blades clashing against Auxilia bayonets. Pink Horrors surged up the banks, spewing warpflame into tanks until they melted like wax. Red Horrors darted through alleys, tearing screaming civilians apart before defenders could intercept them.

Sirens blared across Cairo.

A wail that seemed endless, rolling across the city in waves. A warning, a command: Run.
And they did.

Millions of men, women, and children poured from their homes, eyes wide with terror as they fled toward evacuation convoys. Mothers dragged children by the hand. Fathers carried what they could on their backs. Old men staggered beside youths, the streets jammed shoulder to shoulder with humanity surging outward.

Overhead, loudspeakers screamed in Arabic and Gothic both:
“Cairo under attack. Evacuation routes active. Move east, move east!”

The sirens blended with the Titans’ warhorns and the endless thunder of guns into one nightmare symphony.
In the skies above the Nile, a formation of Valkyrie gunships dove low, their heavy bolters tearing into the daemons that crested the banks. One was struck from the air by a fireball, spinning in a spiral of smoke before crashing into the water, killing dozens of Horrors in its death throes.

On the ground, an Auxilia commander raised his sword, voice raw as he screamed through a vox-augmented speaker:
“FOR THE IMPERIUM! FOR EARTH! HOLD THE LINE!”

And they did.

Iron Warriors fought shoulder to shoulder with mortal soldiers, their bolters never ceasing. Word Bearers intoned liturgies of defiance, their voices booming over the chaos as they struck down Horrors by the handful. Heroes leapt into the fray—Son of Ra, an Egyptian hero swings his hands, blades of light screaming through the air and slicing through hundreds of horrors as Renekton, his massive crocodilian frame holds a line, dozens die with each of the swings of his blade as his massive jaws rip through more.

And behind them all, the people ran.

The people of Cairo. The people of Earth. Millions, fleeing under the shadow of monsters and gods, with only seconds bought by blood and steel to keep them alive.

The Nile burned. The sky shook. The war for Cairo had begun.

Chapter 16: The Ballad of Blizzards and Suns

Summary:

I'm not sorry

Chapter 16- The Ballad of Blizzards and Suns

The trench line was collapsing. The dune beneath their feet was no longer solid sand but quivering, writhing corruption. The air smelled of rot and copper, every breath thick like drinking blood. The sky was alive with daemon-fire.

“Fall back!” Perturabo’s voice thundered over the chaos, his iron helm turning to the mortals clustered around him. His hand snapped out, pointing toward the Nile, toward the smoking city beyond. “Get to the river! To the defenses!”

“THERE’S NO TIME!” Shishido barked, his beastly mane bristling as another section of trench wall gave way, swallowed by warp-light. The dune was sinking.

Lorgar’s book was gone, forgotten in the sand. He caught Kirishima by the backplate before the boy toppled into the collapsing earth, hauling him upright as though he weighed nothing. “Stay with me!” the Word Bearer primarch ordered, voice a commanding hymn even now.

And then—
The world froze.
Literally.

With a roar that cracked his throat raw, Shoto Todoroki slammed his right foot into the collapsing trench floor. Heat from his left side bled into his veins, but from his right came a titanic pulse of power. The air screamed.

A glacier exploded out of the desert.

Ice surged upward in a jagged wall, shards the size of tanks erupting around them as the sand flash-froze solid. From the cracked trench floor a bridge burst forth—no, not a bridge. An entire causeway.
A frozen road stretched out from their collapsing dune all the way to the Nile’s far defenses, wide enough for a Titan to walk upon, thick enough to support the charge of Astartes in full plate. Steam hissed as the desert’s heat clashed with the sudden blizzard. The air howled with frost.

Every step Todoroki took forward thickened the bridge. Every heave of his chest made the glacier groan and grow. His hair whipped in the wind of his own making, white half aglow with crystalline ice, red half steaming with fury.

Miracles were meant for Primarchs, for psykers, for gods. But here, in the middle of the desert, a mortal boy had bent the battlefield itself to his will.
Perturabo, architect of empires, blinked once. Then twice. His iron heart skipped a beat.

“He… shaped the terrain,” the Iron Lord muttered. “With a thought.”

Angron, blood still fresh on his chainblades, gave a barking laugh that cut through the chaos. “HAH! The pup has fangs after all!”

“Not a pup,” Lorgar said quietly, watching the ice road stretch across the desert toward salvation. He set a gauntlet on Todoroki’s shoulder as the boy staggered but refused to stop. “A prophet of his own kind.”

“Everyone MOVE!” Captain Celebrity roared, his voice booming with desperation. “That bridge won’t hold forever!”

The trench erupted into motion.

Pro Heroes sprinted alongside armored giants. Astartes vaulted over shattered earthworks, their bolters still barking death even as they ran. World Eaters used their brothers’ shoulders as springboards, bounding onto the ice to meet daemons clawing at its edges. Warhound Titans, three colossal beasts of metal and fury, thundered after them—their titanic feet crashing onto the frozen causeway without breaking it.

And the students, mortal and fragile, ran at the forefront of it all.

Kirishima hardened his body into crimson stone, taking the lead to block a gout of warpflame from clipping Jirou. Awase’s quirk fused scrap metal into makeshift shields as he ran, tossing them to whoever stumbled. Kendo’s fists smashed aside lesser daemons trying to scramble up onto the ice. Ibara’s vines lashed behind them, weaving a living wall to delay pursuit.

Everywhere, Todoroki’s glacier held.

Everywhere, it carried them forward.

From the walls of Cairo, defenders stared in disbelief as they saw the miracle unfold—a line of light cutting across the desert sun, an ice bridge rising from nothing, carrying gods and men alike.
The Nile’s defenders roared in unison, their courage reignited.

And the Primarchs, those sons of the Emperor who had doubted that children could ever march beside them, realized they were wrong.
So very, very wrong.

The ice bridge thundered with the march of Titans and Astartes. But Todoroki wasn’t looking at the glacier he had made. His eyes locked instead on the ocean of daemons still pouring through the pyramid fissure, sweeping toward Cairo like a tidal wave of screaming mouths and clawed wings.

Angron roared at his World Eaters, charging headlong across the bridge, the impact of their boots cracking the ice with every stride. Todoroki ran faster, his chest burning, his body trembling with exhaustion. His legs carried him not toward safety, but toward the front.

At the last second, before the bridge ended, he leapt.

His hand clamped onto Angron’s chain-bound shoulder plate, his small frame barely clinging to the Primarch’s titanic bulk.

“WHAT IS THIS?!” Angron bellowed, glaring at the mortal boy gripping him like a rider.

“I’m not—” Todoroki coughed, breath misting with frost. “—running away anymore!”

They fell together, smashing into the riverbank trench where the World Eaters had made their stand. Daemons shrieked, claws raking at ceramite. The barricades groaned under the weight of the onslaught.
And Todoroki… snapped.

Not broken. Not shattered. But unleashed.

Every emotion he had locked away, every wound carved into him by his father’s cruelty, every moment he had hated half of himself — it all came roaring to the surface.

The right half of his body burned ice-blue. The left half ignited in crimson fire.

He stepped onto the barricade, small against the Primarchs and Titans, but blazing with power. His voice was a ragged scream.

“PLUS—ULTRA!”

He swung his right hand outward.

The Nile froze.
A shelf of jagged, glittering ice ripped outward, a glacier born in a heartbeat. The river screamed as thousands of Horrors flash-froze mid-leap, their forms suspended in crystal coffins. The shockwave of frost rolled across the water, locking entire swarms in place.

He swung his left hand.
Fire roared.
The ice cracked and boiled, rivers turning into a maelstrom of steam and molten shards. Daemons screeched as the water itself scalded them alive, their bodies bursting in clouds of greasy smoke. The air shimmered with heat.

For the first time in his life, Shoto Todoroki was not fighting against himself. The fire and the ice did not pull him apart. They met at his core, harmonized, became a weapon greater than either half alone.
He stood on the barricade, hair whipping, steam and frost swirling in a cyclone around him. His scream cut across the battlefield, raw and defiant, echoing off the pyramids and the walls of Cairo.

A mortal boy. A student. A son.

And in this moment, a hero the likes of which even the Primarchs could not deny.

The World Eaters roared his name. The Iron Warriors shifted firing lines to compliment the new terrain. Lorgar bowed his head as though witnessing a revelation. Even Angron’s eternal rage faltered for half a
heartbeat, a shadow of pride passing across his scarred face.

Cairo’s defenders saw. The cameras saw. The world saw.

And the tide of daemons shuddered against a wall of mortal defiance.

The battlefield slowed around him.

Todoroki’s chest heaved, every breath scorching and freezing at once, steam rising from his lips. The river boiled. The glacier split. Thousands of daemons dissolved into ash, their corpses crumbling into warp-mist.
But his eyes—his mismatched eyes—glowed with something new. Not fire. Not ice. But light.

A thread.
At first faint, like the ghost of a dream. Then thicker, brighter. Webs of golden strands stretching into infinity, brushing against his mind. He gasped as he saw flashes of other people—his classmates, the pro heroes, millions of souls in Cairo—each burning with a flickering light tethered to the same endless web.

It wasn’t just power. It was a connection.

And the web fed him.

Todoroki staggered but did not fall. His flames burned hotter, white-hot and pure, no longer wild rage but controlled fury. His ice grew sharper, crystalline and perfect, fractal lattices humming with resonance.
Lorgar’s head snapped toward him, eyes widening. The primarch felt it instantly—the ripple in the immaterium. Not the raw uncontrolled flailing of a mutant, but the deliberate pulse of a nascent blooming psyker, his soul latching onto the warp.

“By the Throne…” Lorgar whispered, awe lacing his voice. “He touches it. He… touches the warp.”

Perturabo, halfway through barking orders to his Iron Warriors, froze. His storm-gray eyes narrowed. “Impossible. These children are not psykers.”

Lorgar’s lips curled into a grim smile. “Not psykers, brother. Echoes. Echoes born of the Crown’s corruption.”

Even Angron, drenched in daemon blood, paused to stare at the boy upon the barricade. His chainaxe dripped ichor, but for once, the Butcher’s rage did not consume him. His scarred face twisted in confusion… and the faintest flicker of respect.

The realization spread like wildfire among the Primarchs.
Quirks.

For two centuries they had seen this world shaped by strange abilities, dismissing them as mutations, curiosities, tools. But now—now it was undeniable. These were no random gifts. They were warp echoes. Fragments of the artifact’s fall, etched into the souls of this mankind.

And Todoroki was proving it.

His cry of “Plus Ultra!” was no longer a student’s desperate roar—it was a psychic shout, echoing across the veil, shattering daemons in its wake. Fire and ice bloomed outward in vast arcs, shaping themselves not only by his will but by the will of those tethered to him—the hope of his classmates, the faith of the heroes, the prayers of terrified civilians watching from the riverbanks.

He was not just one boy. He was a nexus.

Steam hissed around him, forming a halo of boiling mist and crystalline frost. His shadow stretched long against the barricade, distorted by the raw power bleeding from him. The warp itself bent, threads of unreality coiling toward him like moths to flame.

Lorgar could not tear his eyes away. His voice carried like a sermon, meant for Perturabo and Angron but whispered as though to himself.
“The Crown… it did not just birth power. It seeded humanity with souls attuned to the immaterium. Every quirk is a scar. Every gift, a trace. And now—this one has found the source.”

Todoroki screamed again, unleashing another wave of fire and ice. The river split, one side frozen solid, the other a boiling inferno. Thousands of daemons disintegrated under the clash of extremes, their forms unable to withstand such purity of intent.

Angron let out a booming laugh, chainaxes revving as he threw himself back into the melee. “HA! The boy fights like a Legionary! He’s ours, Lorgar!”

Perturabo’s expression remained iron-hard, but there was a sharp edge in his voice. “Or he is something far more dangerous than any of us expected.”

Lorgar pressed a hand to his chest, his lips curling into something between a smile and a prayer. “Dangerous? No, brother. He is proof.”

Proof that the primarchs had underestimated these mortals. Proof that quirks were more than curiosities. Proof that humanity here was no passive clay—but a kindled flame ready to burn against Chaos.

And proof that the war for this world had only just begun.

The Nile boiled.
The desert froze.

And in the heart of it all, Shoto Todoroki stood like a god made flesh.

His flames blazed white, hotter than any furnace. His ice shone black with cold, so absolute it shimmered like obsidian glass. Every motion of his arms was a storm, every roar a quake in reality. Daemons shrieked as they withered beneath his fury—horrors cracking like shattered porcelain, Tzaangors flash-frozen mid-cry, their corpses split apart by spears of molten flame.

The barricade held.

For a single moment, the defenders believed. The Iron Warriors stopped firing to stare. The World Eaters bellowed approval as the boy’s wrath carved swathes through the horde. Heroes whispered in awe, students cried out his name. Even the Primarchs, demigods of war, exchanged glances heavy with realization.

Todoroki wasn’t following them. He was leading.

His cry of PLUS ULTRA! ripped the battlefield open, his soul blazing brighter than any sun. Fire and frost, perfectly balanced, crashed over the river in tidal waves, forcing the tide of daemons back, back, back toward the shattered ruins of the pyramid.

And then—

The world turned dark.

A ripple tore through the immaterium, heavy and choking. The screams of the daemons turned from rage to worship. The battlefield hushed, even the World Eaters faltering mid-strike.
From the base of the broken crystal spire, it emerged.

Feathers like oil-slick flame. Eyes upon eyes, each burning with impossible futures. Twin heads, one shrieking laughter, the other whispering prophecy. Its wings unfurled, blotting out the Nile with shadow. The air warped around it, reality groaning like a ship’s hull under pressure.

Kairos Fateweaver.
The two-headed oracle of Tzeentch.
The favored champion of the Changer of Ways.

The Primarchs themselves paused. Even Angron’s savage grin faltered. Lorgar’s lips parted in a trembling prayer. Perturabo’s jaw clenched, calculations racing behind cold eyes.
And Todoroki—still burning, still pushing, still believing—looked up and locked eyes with it.

For a heartbeat, there was silence. Then Kairos moved.

No grand speech. No fanfare. Just inevitability.
A single claw lifted, curling as if plucking a string. Warp-light gathered, blue and violet, a star condensed into a single thread of hate.

The bolt struck Todoroki before he could even react.

It tore through his chest with a sound like rending steel, vaporizing bone and boiling blood into mist. His cry died in his throat, cut short as his body convulsed, then flung like a ragdoll across the barricade. The ground cratered where he landed, ice and fire extinguished in an instant.

The boy who froze the desert and boiled a river—
The boy who had touched the warp and bent it to mortal will—
Lay broken, his chest cored open, his body twitching once before falling still.

The battlefield screamed.

Jirou’s voice cracked in horror. Kirishima surged forward, only to be dragged back by Vlad King. Kamui Woods’ branches writhed in grief and rage. Even the World Eaters roared with fury, hurling themselves harder into the daemons, as though to avenge a fallen brother-in-arms.

But the Primarchs knew the truth.
What had just happened was no battle wound. It was no duel. It was a demonstration. A swat. A god reminding mortals of their place.

Kairos’s two heads spoke as one, their voices reverberating across Cairo like the toll of a funeral bell:
“Past, present, future… all roads lead to ash. Did you think a child could defy fate?”

The daemon’s laughter curdled the air, warping light, twisting hope.

Lorgar’s hands clenched, nails biting deep into his palms. “He—he killed him. As if he were nothing. As if—”

Angron’s teeth bared in a snarl, chainaxes whirring, his blood screaming for vengeance—but even he hesitated. Even he knew.

Perturabo’s voice cut like iron, low and merciless. “This… is the gulf. Mortals may touch the warp. They may burn bright. But against its true masters?” His gaze lingered on Todoroki’s still body, then snapped back to Kairos’s hulking form. “They are fireflies against a storm.”

The battlefield trembled. Hope cracked.

And with Todoroki’s death, the war for Cairo entered its climax.

Notes:

Nobody is safe in this story, the Major Character death tag will not be unused

Chapter 17: The Pyre of the Lost

Summary:

the world reels from the death of Todoroki, including his father. in his name the legions build a funeral pyre the likes of which this world has never seen, with Kairos as the spark.

Chapter Seventeen-The Pyre of the Lost

Screens flickered across the world.

Across continents and oceans, across bunkers and palaces, across trenches and ruins, the defenders of Terra watched the same impossible vision: Shoto Todoroki, wreathed in fire and frost, standing upon the barricade as though he were born for this war. They watched the desert freeze, the Nile boil, the skies burn white with his power.
For one breathtaking instant, the world believed.

And then they saw him die.

A lance of warp-light, blue and violet, tearing straight through his chest. His body hurled aside, flames snuffed, ice shattered, hope drowned in silence.
The broadcast did not cut away. It lingered. On the smoke rising from his still body. On the hulking form of Kairos Fateweaver, feathers gleaming like oil and fire, eyes blazing with futures only it could see.
The silence afterward was unbearable.

Asia

In Tokyo, a command room in UA shook with sobs.
Midoriya’s fists clenched until his nails broke skin, blood dripping down his trembling hands. His eyes never left the screen. His friend. His rival. Gone in an instant.

Tsuyu wept openly, hands pressed to her mouth. Yaoyorozu sank to her knees, her lips forming prayers she barely understood. Mirio, standing at the front, stared with hollow eyes, his usually bright smile stripped away.

Monoma screamed at the monitors, at the unfairness, at fate itself, before collapsing against Testutetsu’s shoulder.

Behind them, the Primarchs watched in silence. Horus’s jaw was stone, his knuckles white. Sanguinius bowed his golden head in sorrow, wings folding around him like a shroud. Magnus closed his eyes, voice low as a prayer:
“So bright. And yet… so brief.”

All Might gripped his sides, his weakened form trembling as steam rose from him. Nighteye’s glasses cracked under the force of his grip. Aizawa’s eyes were red, but no capture scarf could bind grief.

Africa & the Middle East

The battlefield in Cairo still roared, but those who had a moment to look back saw the same vision.

Jirou screamed until her throat tore. Kirishima pounded the ground with bloodied fists, crying out his brother’s name. Ibara’s vines wrapped tight around her, a shield against the horror.
Awase and Kendo stood frozen, trembling as though the ground beneath them had given way.

The Word Bearers lowered their bolters in shock. Even the Iron Warriors faltered mid-fire.

Lorgar’s lips moved soundlessly. Perturabo’s eyes closed, his jaw rigid with rage he dared not voice. And Angron… Angron bellowed a howl of fury, chainaxes screaming, his rage boiling into a hurricane.

North America

In New York, Star and Stripe punched the wall hard enough to shatter steel. “DAMN IT!” she roared, her teeth bared.

Midnight’s hand covered her mouth, tears streaking down her face. Ingenium gripped his younger brother’s shoulders as Iida fell to his knees, shaking with sobs.

Mina shrieked, Pony wailed, Nejire collapsed into Setsuna’s arms.

The Primarchs stood in shadow. Guilliman’s face was carved from stone, Lion El’Jonson’s hand resting upon the hilt of his blade, and Jaghatai Khan spat upon the ground, whispering curses in languages no mortal ear could catch.

South America

In Brazil, Tokoyami’s head bowed, his dark shadow keening with a sound that was not human. Uraraka’s screams filled the command room, her fists battering helplessly at the table. Koji sobbed into his arms,
Kinoko covered her eyes as if to block out the sight, but it was burned into her mind.

Hawks’ wings drooped like broken glass. The Wild, Wild Pussycats held one another, trembling.

Mortarion’s face was unreadable, Konrad Curze’s laughter came thin and broken, and Vulkan bowed his head, whispering, “Not the boy. He was still only a boy…”

Europe

In Berlin, Bakugo’s howl tore across the bunker like an explosion. He slammed his fists against the wall until blood slicked the concrete.
Kaminari collapsed, Shoji catching him before he fell. Tamaki’s voice broke as he cried out Todoroki’s name, Sero and Juzo gripping one another like drowning men.
The heroes stared, pale and shaking. Mirko punched the wall until her knuckles split. Cementoss turned away, his stone face streaming with tears.
Above them, Corax’s eyes burned with sorrow, Dorn’s lips were a grim slash, and Leman Russ’s snarl was audible even through the vox.

Oceania & Australia

Endeavor froze.

The screen still flickered before him. His son’s body lay broken, still.

The pro heroes around him gasped, screamed, cursed. Best Jeanist’s hands trembled, Gang Orca’s roar filled the chamber, Edge Shot cursed under his breath. The students clung to one another, Shinso hiding his face, Tooru sobbing invisible tears.

But Endeavor…
The man collapsed to his knees. His head fell forward, shoulders shaking. A guttural sound tore from his throat, low at first, then rising, raw and animalistic.
A scream ripped from him, broken and endless. A sound not of a hero, not of a man, but of a father.

His quirk erupted in sympathy. Flames roared from his body, hotter and brighter than ever before, until the chamber itself glowed white. Not the fire of ambition. Not the flames of pride. But a sun of grief, blazing wild and uncontrolled, a pyre for his son.

The world watched as Endeavor screamed, fire wreathing him like a funeral star.

The bunker could not hold him.

Endeavor’s screams grew louder, his flames searing every wall, the air itself shrieking as oxygen turned to white fire. The students and pro heroes backed away, shielding their faces, some collapsing to the ground under the oppressive heat.

It was Ferrus Manus who moved.
The Gorgon did not hesitate. His silver hands reached through the inferno, the living metal of his arms glowing red-hot almost instantly, molten lines racing across their once-perfect surfaces. His face was set in stone, eyes sorrowful but unflinching.

“Come,” Ferrus growled, voice like the strike of a hammer on iron. “Not here.”

He wrapped both hands around Endeavor’s shoulders. The hero thrashed, screaming, fire spilling from his mouth and eyes. It burned against Ferrus’s armor, welding seams, cooking ceramite, but the Primarch did not let go.
Step by step, dragging the burning man like a forge-beast, Ferrus pulled him through the bunker doors, out into the desert night.

The sand turned to glass beneath their feet.

Endeavor’s grief had become a star. His body was swallowed by fire, the flames coalescing into a dome of plasma, boiling dunes into obsidian, burning the air into silence.
Ferrus finally released him, staggering back as his metal hands hissed and smoked, glowing orange-white. Even the Primarch of the Iron Hands could not hold him long. He planted his heels in the sand, watching with a grim reverence as Endeavor burned.

Behind them, ranks of Emperor’s Children, Alpha Legion, and Iron Hands Astartes marched into position. Not to fight — but to witness. Their helmets glowed faintly in the furnace light. None moved, none spoke.

The desert itself became a pyre.

And then — a sound.
From the horizon, shaking the sands, came the voice of a god-machine.

The Warlord Titan Ex Notica of Legio Atarus turned its head toward the desert. Its plasma vents hissed steam into the cooling night, and then it unleashed its warhorn.
A sound like a funeral bell tolling for the dead, low and endless, rolling across the dunes like thunder.

Endeavor’s firestorm was answered by a Titan’s lament.

The sound spread.

In Cairo, where the Nile boiled and horrors clashed with Astartes, three Warhound Titans of Legio Krytos turned their howling machine-voices to the sky and let loose the same dirge. The battlefield fell silent for a moment, man and daemon alike shuddering at the sound that made the earth shake.

In Berlin, where Titans of Legio Ignatum still stood guard after their victory, the Magnificum Incendius, Imperator of Imperators, bent its colossal head. Its vox-choirs unleashed the sound of mourning, its warhorn keening like the grief of a dying world.

In South America, a Reaver Titan of Legio Gryphonicus in the Andes let loose the toll, its cry echoing through mountains and valleys.

In Australia, engines of Legio Astorum sounded their grief into the ocean, waves shattering on the shores.

Across the globe, wherever the God-Engines of the Collegia Titanica stood, they answered the call.

One after another, the horns sounded.
A chorus of mourning machines, bellowing a requiem to the skies.

The earth itself trembled beneath their grief.

Endeavor fell to his knees in the heart of his own inferno. His flames rose, spiraling higher and higher, until they touched the stars above. His scream was lost in the sound of Titans mourning with him.

The world was united in a single moment.
Not in triumph. Not in hope.

But in grief for a fallen child.

The smoke of war clung heavy over Cairo, a shroud of ash and warp-tainted fire smothering the skyline. The great crystal tower jutted like a blasphemous needle into the heavens, pulsing with unnatural colors. At its base stood Kairos, its twin heads turning in slow, mocking circles, the air warping around it with every breath.

Lorgar strode forward, the Crozius Arcanum gripped in both hands, its dark haft catching the bloody sun’s light. His every step seemed measured, his voice rising even before his lips parted, the tone of a sermon that carried across vox and battlefield alike. The weary mortals, the grim Astartes, the titans looming above—all turned toward him, as if instinct demanded they drink in his words.

“They have taken from us a child,” he thundered, his voice thick with the cadence of scripture, but raw with grief. “A youth who bore no crown, no legion, no ancient blood—yet was loved all the same. He was raised by his peers, his teachers, his comrades. He was made strong by their faith in him. He was tempered by their trials. He was cherished by this village of souls we have wrought together. And now he lies broken by the hand of a liar and beast of the warp.”

Static hissed across his vox as his tone deepened, resonant with fury. “Do you hear me, Kairos? Do you hear, O twisted herald of false futures? You who would snuff out the flame of youth as easily as a man snuffs a candle? Then know this: we are not candles. We are a pyre.”

Lorgar lifted the Crozius high, its head crackling with holy fire, a symbol of faith reforged in rage.
“To the fleet above,” he intoned, voice steady, cold, final. “To every captain, every gunner, every master of ordinance—ignite the heavens. Turn your wrath upon the abomination that mocks us. Let the warp itself quake as it feels the fury of the village whose child was slain. Let your guns not be mere weapons, but bells of mourning. Let each shell, each lance of fire, be a hymn sung in grief and vengeance.”

Above, the fleet stirred. Dozens of battleships shifted in orbit, command relays crackling as captains swore oaths of silence and revenge. Targeting arrays locked upon the coordinates of the crystal tower. Thousands of macro-batteries, lance arrays, and bombardment cannons aligned as one, their machine-spirits keening in anticipation.

“This is his funeral,” Lorgar whispered, though his voice carried like thunder. “Not silence. Not tears. But fire. Fire enough to burn the heavens, fire enough to remind the gods themselves that this boy was loved. Fire enough to make Tzeentch himself recoil.”

He slammed the Crozius against the marble flagstones of Cairo with a crack that echoed like judgment.
“Commence orbital bombardment.”

The night was torn open.
A thousand guns answered his call, the sky splitting as incandescent fury rained down. Lance strikes carved through atmosphere like suns falling from the firmament. Explosive shells the size of buildings shrieked into the heart of the city. The crystal spire was consumed in light, a deluge of plasma and nuclear flame drowning Kairos’ perch in a storm meant for gods.
The ground heaved, the shockwaves flattening what little remained of Cairo’s ruins. The Titans braced themselves, war horns answering the storm, keening their dirges of grief while Astartes banners snapped in hurricane winds. The bombardment was not a strike—it was a requiem.

And through it all, Lorgar stood unmoving, eyes fixed upon the blazing horizon. He did not watch as Kairos was swallowed by fire. He did not watch as the crystal spire fractured. His eyes were closed, his lips moving in silent prayer.
“For the child,” he breathed, almost tenderly.

And the guns of the Imperium sang their funeral hymn.

The world itself seemed to end in fire.

The bombardment rolled on, a ceaseless thunder that split heaven and earth alike. Each impact was a god’s hammer, each lance strike a sun unleashed. For minutes that stretched into eternity, the fleet above emptied its fury upon the crystal tower and the warp-twisted daemon that had desecrated their hope. The sky bled light, brighter than day, and the earth quaked as if in mourning.
And then—silence.

The guns fell still, their machine-spirits exhausted, macrocannon barrels glowing red-hot in orbit. The storm ended, and the battlefield was left smothered beneath a haze of smoke and falling ash, a shroud that turned Cairo into a tomb.

The students stood broken in the ruins, tears streaking through the grime on their faces. Their sobs carried through the silence, raw and unrestrained, children made to witness the truth of war. They pressed close together for comfort, yet their eyes found their anchor not in one another, but in the giant who stood at their side.

Lorgar.

The Word Bearer Primarch lowered himself to one knee among them, vast and terrible, yet gentle as his war-shattered cape was torn free from his armor. With care unfitting his size, he wrapped the broken body of Shoto Todoroki in the fabric, cradling him as if he were no more than an infant. The boy’s hair, half-white and half-red, was stained with soot, his chest still as stone.

The Word Bearers encircled their father silently, their crimson armor lit only by the dull glow of burning ruins. One by one they sank to their knees, their helms bowed, Crozius and bolters laid across their laps.

Their voices rose—not in the shrill fury of war, but in the low cadence of prayer.
“The Emperor’s mercy shall carry this son to peace,” they chanted, the words flowing like a tide. “The Emperor’s mercy shall carry this son to peace.”

The students listened, trembling, then—hesitant, halting—joined their voices to the prayer. Through their tears, they repeated the words, binding their grief to the ritual, offering what little they had for their fallen friend.

Lorgar held Todoroki closer, his forehead resting against the boy’s brow, his voice carrying above the others.
“This child was no soldier of the Legions, yet he fought beside us as though he were. He bore wounds as deep as any of ours, yet he did not falter. He carried fire in one hand and ice in the other, and with them he shielded his people. Now, his flame has been stolen, his frost shattered. But know this—” His voice broke, then rose again, thunder wrapped in prayer. “—though his body has fallen, his soul is not Tzeentch’s to claim. His spirit lies in the hands of those who loved him. His memory is our scripture now. His life, a lesson we shall not forget.”

The ashes fell like snow. The battlefield remained hushed, broken only by the sound of weeping students and the low hymn of armored giants.

And Lorgar, Apostle of the Word, Father of a Legion, cradled the boy as though he were the last child in the galaxy.

Notes:

I'm going to be honest, this is probably the hardest chapter I've written, I had always planned for either Todoroki or Bakugo to die, ever since the first chapter. Writing the actual death was much easier than writing the reactions. I hope I did his funeral justice

Chapter 18: The Indomitable will of Humanity vs The Cold Contempt of the Gods

Summary:

the indomitable human spirit that keeps the imperium intact shows is face, roaring in the face of gods and screaming their hatred, for humanity refuses to go quietly into the night

Notes:

heheheheh I love this chapter, I hope I captured the grandiose and over the topness of a war like this in 40K standards

The prayer carried on, a tide of voices rolling steady, grief bound in ritual. The Word Bearers’ chant blended with the broken sobs of the children, until sorrow itself seemed to hold dominion over the ruins of Cairo. The air hung heavy, as if even the warp itself had withdrawn in silence at the passing of a boy too young to die.

And then—laughter.

It slithered through the smoke, jagged and cruel, cutting through prayer like a blade of glass. A high-pitched cackle first, followed by a guttural rasping croak, both sounds tumbling together into a hideous duet.

The chant faltered.

The students froze, tears drying on their cheeks, hearts hammering in their chests. Even the Astartes—giants bred for war, unyielding in the face of horrors—felt their limbs stiffen, their spirits gripped by an unnatural chill. The battlefield itself seemed to recoil, as if the stones and ash knew the sound of mockery at its most profane.
From the smoke at the base of the shattered crystal tower, something stirred.

A colossal form emerged, swaying as if drunk, each step cracking the ground beneath its talons. The haze parted to reveal feathers burned to ash, scales split and blistered, ichor steaming from rents carved into flesh. One vast wing hung in tatters, the other gone entirely—blasted away by the bombardment. And from its twin heads, only one still stared with hateful purpose; the other lolled lifeless, its neck half-severed, jaw hanging open in ruin.

Kairos Fateweaver.
The favored champion of Tzeentch still lived.

Every psychic shield he bore had been scoured away by the fury of thousands of guns. His body was shattered, his form grotesquely broken. Yet still he stood, and still he laughed. If he were any lesser Deamon he’d have been banished minutes ago.
The surviving head tilted, one eye weeping molten ichor, the other blazing with warpfire. Its cracked beak opened wide, and the voice that spilled out was a chorus of a thousand contradictions—mockery, pity, prophecy, hunger.

“Did you think me gone, little mortals?” Kairos crooned, his laughter folding into words. “Did you think your prayers, your cannons, your pitiful grief would unmake me? I am the Weaver of Fates… the endless thread in Tzeentch’s tapestry. One child, one spark, one funeral pyre—” his voice deepened, shaking the earth, “—means nothing to eternity.”

The Word Bearers stiffened. The students could not breathe.

Lorgar did not move. He still cradled Todoroki in his arms, but his gaze lifted to the daemon, his eyes burning like coals. Around him, his sons gripped their weapons tighter, bolters and blades raised not in fury, but in defiance.

Yet even as the Astartes braced themselves, none could escape the truth—this was a Greater Daemon of Tzeentch, wounded but unbanished. A thing so powerful even Primarchs hesitated.
And still it laughed.

The ashes swirled around the spire like snow in a storm, carrying on the sound of Kairos’ amusement. The silence of mourning was broken, replaced with the bitter taste of dread.
The funeral had ended.

The true nightmare had only just begun.
The laughter of the Fateweaver still echoed across the Nile when another sound split the air.

A roar.
Not the roar of an animal. Not the roar of madness. It was deeper, sharper—anger given flesh. Angron’s voice thundered across the battlefield, shaking the dunes and the shattered ruins alike. His bellow was not merely fury—it was defiance, a promise of violence incarnate.
The Red Angel surged forward, his chainaxes snarling to life with a shriek of steel. His eyes burned like two coals in a storm, and his voice roared over the vox, carried to every helm, every heart of the Eaters of Worlds.
“WORLD EATERS! WITH ME!”

The reply was instantaneous.

One hundred and fifty thousand Astartes rose as one, the entire strength of the legion, their warcry a single convulsion of rage. They broke from their lines like a dam bursting, the desert itself trembling under the stampede. Their white-and-blue armor became a tide across the dunes, chainaxes and chainblades raised, bolters thundering. It was not frenzy. Not the froth of madness that history would one day damn them for.
It was vengeance.

A child had stood among them, unbroken, and shown his worth. A mortal boy, wielding the fire and frost of the warp itself, had bled for them. He had died in defiance of the gods. Even Angron—broken, bitter Angron—had felt the spark of respect.

And that spark had become a fire.

Angron tore across the sand faster than any mortal eye could follow. His chainaxes screamed as he hurled himself at the towering form of Kairos. With each stride, the ground buckled beneath him, dust and sand whipped into a storm by his passage.

“You will die, daemon!” he roared, spittle flying, teeth bared in a savage grin. “I will take your heads—both of them!—and hang them high above the corpses of your flock!”

The World Eaters crashed into the horde like a meteor strike. Bolter fire and the wet crunch of chainaxes filled the air as the tide of Astartes met the flood of horrors and Tzaangors pouring from the broken spire. Daemons burst into shrieking motes of blue and purple fire, hundreds with every heartbeat, as Angron’s legion carved a scar into the warp-born swarm.
But all eyes—mortal, immortal, and divine—were on Angron.

He was not blind rage. He was not the beast the Imperium would one day curse. For the first time since his childhood on Nuceria, Angron’s wrath had purpose. It was a blade honed sharp by grief and respect.
And that blade was aimed squarely at Kairos Fateweaver.

The desert thundered.

It began with Angron’s roar, but it did not end with him. The cry of the Red Angel became a chain reaction, a spark that leapt from soul to soul until the whole of Cairo’s defenders were ablaze with fury. The World Eaters crashed forward, 150,000 chainaxes screaming, their warcry rolling like an avalanche across the dunes. But they were not alone.

Iron Warriors surged beside them, 135,000 strong, bolters roaring as siege-masters abandoned their barricades to join the melee. Word Bearers howled litanies of vengeance, 170,000 strong, Croziuses and blades raised high, their crimson and ash-gray armor reflecting the hellfire of burning horrors. The titans’ vox-net erupted with oath-swearing and fury, and then the god-machines themselves charged.

Warhounds loped across the dunes like metal predators, their vulcan megabolters spitting lines of fire that ripped whole formations of Tzaangors into crimson mist. Reavers strode with earth-shaking steps, their apocalypse launchers painting the sky in fire. And at the center of it all, the Warlord Titan Hammer of Tyrants bellowed its warhorn—a sound like the tolling of the universe’s funeral bell—and broke into a stride, each step a thunderclap that flattened dunes.

“WE WILL NOT BOW, WE ARE HUMANITY, WE OWN THE STARS. FEEL OUR WILL”

The ground itself seemed to run with humanity’s fury.

From the trenches poured the mortals. Egyptian soldiers, Auxilia troopers, PDF, and heroes alike vaulted their barricades, bayonets flashing, rocket launchers braced on shoulders, quirks blazing. Captain Celebrity led the charge like a golden spear, his body glowing as he hurled himself into the swarm, smashing daemons with blows that cratered the sand. Vlad King bellowed as spears of hardened blood lanced out in a crimson storm, skewering horrors in the dozens. Kamui Woods and Ibara wove living walls of bark and vine through the chaos, spearing daemons, binding them, ripping them apart with nature’s fury.

And the students—children no longer—fought as though born for this war.

Jirou’s heart pounded like a war drum as she sent shockwaves through the ground, splitting the sand beneath a swarm of pink horrors, leaving them screaming as they burned in the molten cracks. Kirishima, body hardened into crimson stone, slammed into the front lines, splitting skulls with his fists as though they were fruit. Kendo’s hands, massive and monstrous, swung like titanic hammers, each blow flattening scores of Tzaangors into pulp. Awase scrambled from cover to cover, welding daemonic weapons together mid-swing, locking them uselessly in their own hands before driving a blade through their throats. And Ibara… she was a vision of wrath divine, her vines tearing daemons apart like paper, each thorned lash wet with ichor, her lips whispering prayers through clenched teeth.
They did not fight as students. They fought as warriors scorned, as the next generation of mankind screaming their defiance into the face of gods.

Above it all strode the primarchs.

Angron carved his path through the swarm, chainaxes wailing as blood sprayed in curtains. He was a force of nature, unstoppable, unrelenting. Every swing of his weapons cleaved scores of daemons into shreds, his armored boots leaving only broken corpses in his wake.
From the left flank strode Perturabo, voice cold as iron as he ordered the titans’ fire, his hammer Forgebreaker smashing daemons into paste with every blow. Where Angron was fury, Perturabo was precision—the two halves of war given flesh. His Iron Warriors carved corridors of fire through the horde, bolters and autocannons roaring in exact, surgical arcs, guiding the charge like a machine of flesh and steel.
And then came Lorgar on the right flank, cape whipping in the smoke, his Crozius lifted high. His voice carried over the vox-net, over the screaming and the thunder. It was not fury that he spoke—it was scripture. His every word was a weapon, binding the spirits of men and Astartes alike, fueling them with the unbreakable strength of faith. Where his words touched, hesitation fled, wounds seemed lighter, fear vanished. His Word Bearers fought like zealots aflame, unyielding even when torn limb from limb.

The three primarchs cut a swath of devastation in a three pronged wave, Angron’s fury, Perturabo’s iron, and Lorgar’s fire binding together in a trinity of annihilation.
The battlefield was anarchy incarnate.

Tens of thousands of Tzaangors on screeching discs clashed with armored columns of Iron Warriors tanks. Red and blue horrors split and multiplied beneath the blows of chainaxes, their shrieks lost beneath the thunder of bombing runs. The Nile boiled with daemonic ichor, the desert sand turned to glass under psychic fire and quirk-born flame. Titans fired into the heart of the swarm, volcano cannons spitting suns, plasma annihilators reducing entire ranks of daemons to nothing but shadows burned into the dunes.

The air itself became fire.

And at the heart of it, towering above the chaos, Kairos Fateweaver stood beneath the crystalline spire that jutted from the corpse of the pyramid. One head hung limp, blasted near to ruin by the orbital bombardment, ichor dripping like rain. The other screamed its laughter, its staff raised as storms of warp lightning lashed into the charging host, ripping dozens, hundreds of men and Astartes apart with every strike.

But still they came.
Humanity surged.

A tide of flesh and steel and fire, of faith and rage and grief, all pouring into one endless scream of defiance. The desert outside Cairo was no longer yellow sand—it was painted red with ichor and blood. Millions fought across dunes turned to ash, a clash of mortals and gods that shook the sky itself.
And through the storm strode three primarchs, their eyes locked upon the daemon who had slain the child.

Kairos had laughed once. He would not laugh again.

The battlefield had no shape anymore.

What had begun as a line, as trenches and barricades, had dissolved into something primal, something beyond maps or strategy. The desert itself became a living, screaming maze of blood and fire.
Kirishima staggered forward, his skin like living stone, his fists cracked and bleeding from constant blows. Beside him, Yoroi Musha—armor battered, blade dripping ichor—fought like the warrior of legend he was, his every swing carving arcs of light through the night. The two of them were ringed in, hemmed on all sides by clawing red and blue horrors that split and multiplied with each death. For every one they killed, two more rose from the muck, screeching laughter rattling their skulls.

“BACK TO BACK!” Kirishima roared, teeth bared, his fists hammering into a beast that lunged for his throat. His hardened knuckles shattered bone, spraying black ichor across the sand.
The swarm pressed in tighter, their screeches deafening. Yoroi Musha’s sword became a blur, his ragged breath steaming in the desert air, his voice hoarse as he shouted old battle cries. A horror’s talons raked across his shoulder, tearing through his armor, another leapt for Kirishima’s throat—

—and the world exploded.

A storm of chainaxes and war cries smashed into the horde. Khârn himself, his helm dripping with gore, roared as his axe cleaved through horrors in sprays of light and flame. “STAND, LITTLE WARRIORS!” he bellowed, laughter echoing like thunder. Around him, a pack of World Eaters tore into the daemons, chainaxes chewing, boots grinding them into the sand. The horde faltered, crushed beneath the berserk tide.
Kirishima gasped, wide-eyed, his chest heaving. Yoroi Musha tightened his grip on his sword and gave a nod of gratitude. Khârn didn’t notice. He was already swinging into the next knot of daemons, laughter and fury indistinguishable.

The line had shattered.

Everywhere, the desert writhed with combat. Isolated knots of mortals fought in frantic circles, weaving between the towering forms of Astartes who became living bastions. A single Iron Warrior would wade forward, bolter spitting, while squads of mortals huddled behind his bulk, firing between his armored legs, using him as moving cover. Word Bearers stood like pillars, their croziuses and bolters flashing as civilians and soldiers alike fired in their shadows, the battle devolving into an ant colony’s frenzy—two swarms colliding, tearing, biting, clawing, with no front and no rear.
Jirou screamed as a flock of screeching pink horrors surged toward her, their claws flashing. She fell, her earjacks lashing out wildly, bursting the ground beneath them in a wave of sonic shock. For a heartbeat it worked—the daemons staggered, shrieking. But then they swarmed again.

Ibara was there, her vines snapping forward in a tangle, thorned whips dragging horrors into the sand and crushing them in coils. Her lips whispered prayers, her eyes wide with desperate fire. But there were too many. The horrors burst through, claws raised—

A Crozius Arcanum smashed them aside.

Lorgar strode into the storm, his eyes burning with psychic fire. His voice rang out, not just words but scripture, his sermon carrying above the chaos like the toll of a cathedral bell: “Stand, children! For even in the shadow of gods, the light of Man shall not falter!” His every word seemed to stiffen spines, to drive weakness from the heart.
And beside him, Kamui Woods erupted in a hurricane of growth. Wooden limbs cracked from the ground, roots impaling horrors, branches snapping them apart. He dragged Jirou to her feet with one hand, wrapping his vines around Ibara’s trembling shoulders. “We fight together!” he snarled, planting himself beside Lorgar, their powers meshing—faith and nature, iron and wood, holding the tide for one heartbeat longer.

But the tide was endless.

One of the Warhounds stumbled. The titan Vigil of Ashes bellowed as thousands of daemons swarmed up its legs, claws scraping at its armor, horrors latching onto its carapace like carrion birds. Its void shields flared and guttered, bolts of sorcery cracking against its frame. For a terrible moment, it swayed, titanic limbs sinking into the dunes beneath the weight.

Then salvation came.

Captain Celebrity hurled himself into the swarm, his body blazing like a meteor. He crashed into the tide at the titan’s ankles, every punch cratering the ground, shockwaves blasting daemons into paste. Word Bearers joined him, chanting litanies as bolters roared. World Eaters slammed into the pile like tidal waves, tearing daemons off the titan’s limbs, carving bloody handholds in the daemon-flesh. Inch by inch, they freed the god-machine, until its limbs shook off the swarm with mechanical fury, its weapons roaring once more.

And then the earth itself shook.

Hammer of Tyrants stepped into the fray. The Warlord Titan’s silhouette was a walking mountain, each stride cratering the dunes, each motion enough to crush scores of daemons beneath its adamantine bulk. Its void shields flickered as psychic lightning and warp-fire rained against it, the furious power of Tzeentch’s servants hammering like waves against a cliff. But the shields held, great hexagonal arcs flashing across its frame as the titan strode through the battlefield like a god of war incarnate.

Beneath its stride, men and Astartes fought, the titan shielding them not just with firepower but with its very body, absorbing the daemonic storm upon its shields so that those below could strike.
And then the titan roared.

Its warhorn blasted, a sound so vast it shook the marrow of every mortal bone. It was not just a horn—it was a god’s roar, a proclamation of war and vengeance. The battlefield froze for a heartbeat, daemons and men alike staring skyward, and then the titan’s volcano cannon spat a sun into the night.

The desert became a sea of fire.

The sands shook with every thunderous stride of Hammer of Tyrants, the Warlord Titan striding like a god incarnate across the blood-soaked plain. Its void shields flared bright against the storm of sorcery hurled by Kairos’ servants, arcs of warp-lightning clawing at its hull, flames of unreality bending in upon themselves before breaking against the Emperor’s titanic war machine. Each blast that struck its shields was a sound like a mountain cracking, a sky splitting. Still, the titan pressed on, its warhorn thundering like the roar of a furious god over the battlefield.

Beneath its towering frame, a single armored figure held his ground. Perturabo, clad in iron, unyielding as stone, stood braced in the shadow of the god-machine as he led mortals and astartes alike. His hammer split daemon flesh and shattered bone with every swing, each strike carving space amidst the writhing tide that clawed at the Titan’s adamantium ankles. Blood-red sand sprayed in arcs around him as he fought, his voice a mechanical snarl carried over vox to the Titan’s princeps.
“Targeting beacon active,” he growled, lifting his wrist-mounted device to shine a pulsing crimson laser upon the crystalline spire. The great tower, jagged and alive with warp-light, pulsed like the beating heart of Tzeentch’s infestation, birthing endless tides of Horrors and Tzaangors from its fractured surface. It was not Kairos himself he marked for annihilation—no, Perturabo’s tactical mind knew better. Cut the artery, bleed the horde dry.

The laser burned bright against the alien crystal, and the Titan’s head swiveled with the precision of a predator sighting prey. Its volcano cannon retracted, re-aimed, and locked onto the spire. The massive weapon’s chamber began to glow, brighter and brighter, until its radiance was nearly blinding.

Around Perturabo’s boots, the tide surged again—daemon bodies clawing, screaming, mutating as they hurled themselves against the Iron Lord. His hammer rose, fell, and split them like meat, but still they came. It was then that Shishido bounded into the melee with a roar. His fur was slick with blood, claws lashing out like steel scythes to rip through a Tzangoor.

“Lord Perturabo!” Shishido shouted, striking down a screeching Horror that lunged for the Titan’s leg joints. “Your flanks!”

Perturabo grunted, pivoting as he split a screamer in half, warp ichor splattering his armor. But even with the two of them, the swarm pressed too close, seeking to drag the god-machine down into the muck and sand.
Then, like an iron tide, salvation came. From the flank of the Titan, a column of Leman Russ tanks roared into the fray alongside a battalion of Elysian Drop troopers, their las guns cutting through the air as they descended, landing on the titans legs like ants, protecting the colossal god engine. The tank engines screamed, tracks biting deep into the sand, barrels leveling in perfect unison. Shishido raised his clawed hand, leaping onto the lead tank as if born to stand upon its steel hide.

“Fire!” he bellowed.

Dozens of battle cannons barked at once, the recoil shaking the earth as high-explosive rounds screamed into the oncoming host. Fire and smoke blossomed across the desert, tearing apart ranks of daemons with every thunderous detonation. At their fore, one round struck true against the titanic bulk of a Mutalith Vortex Beast, the unnatural creature keening as its warp-flesh ruptured. The tanks adjusted, hammering it again and again, until the writhing colossus toppled, its mutation-fueled screams silenced beneath the weight of Imperial ordnance.

Above, Hammer of Tyrants’ warhorn bellowed once more—its answering cry to the mortal and posthuman warriors at its feet. Its void shields flared, absorbing a rain of psychic flame meant to reduce Perturabo, Shishido, and the tanks to ash. The giant leaned forward, every servomotor screaming, every piston straining as its volcano cannon unleashed.

The beam split the night sky in two.

Blinding white fire speared out, hotter than the heart of a sun, and slammed into the crystalline spire. For a heartbeat the tower held, its alien geometry absorbing the blast with shrieks that sounded like laughter. Then the light overpowered it. Warp-crystal shattered, great chunks erupting outward in shards the size of tanks, and a shockwave of psychic backlash rippled across the battlefield, toppling Horrors into dust and sending Tzaangors screaming into the void.

The spire burned. The tide slowed. And for a moment—just a heartbeat—the battle shifted.

The spire collapsed like a dying star, shards of warp-crystal shrieking as they tore loose and came down around the battlefield in jagged meteors. Each impact split the sand into molten glass, each fracture screaming like a chorus of the damned. Yet Kairos did not look back. The two-headed Lord of Change stood amidst the ruin of his sorcerous throne, feathers blackened and torn, ichor spilling from the ragged stump of one wing, one head lolling lifeless while the other blazed with warpfire fury. He had no time for grief. No time for rage. For Angron, the Red Angel, had him locked in a duel of annihilation.
The World Eater Primarch was a storm of fury, his chainaxes roaring, his teeth bared as he threw himself again and again into the greater daemon’s guard. Every strike was a killing blow, every swing a thunderclap of rage meant to tear Kairos apart. But the Fateweaver was no lesser horror—every sweep of his staff deflected, twisted, or caught the incoming blows, psychic wards shrieking as they absorbed the brute force of Angron’s wrath. Even wounded, even stripped of his spire’s strength, Kairos was still a being that made Primarchs hesitate.

And yet—he hesitated now.

Not because of Angron alone, but because of the tide. Humanity itself had turned against him in a frenzy of sacrifice.
Mortals hurled themselves into his path, climbing his talons, throwing grenades into his feathers, firing lasguns into his eyes at point-blank range. They burned alive from the psychic backlash of his aura, but they did not stop. When Kairos unleashed bolts of screaming warp-lightning meant to vaporize Angron, mortal soldiers and heroes alike leapt into the path, their bodies charred to ash so the primarch would not falter. When he conjured storms of fire hot enough to melt ceramite, Auxilia tanks rolled into the inferno and detonated, their dying crews screaming prayers into the smoke as the explosion staggered him long enough for Angron to close the gap.

It was not a battle. It was a massacre. And still they came.

The students of U.A., the battered heroes of Japan and Egypt, the remnants of Cairo’s militia, and the Astartes of three Legions, all fought as one—not with honor, but with the desperation of a species that refused to die quietly. Jirou’s ears bled as she directed heavy weapons fire through the cacophony, her quirk amplifying vox-channels so lascannon batteries could target Kairos between the dueling titans. Ibara’s vines lashed out like living chains, dragging fallen mortals clear so others could throw themselves forward. Kirishima himself dove in front of a psychic lance, his hardening quirk cracking like stone under a meteor, his body hurled aside smoking but alive. Even Kamui Woods entwined his limbs around Kairos’ staff, buying Angron the heartbeat he needed to land a strike that split the daemon’s torso open in a spray of multicolored ichor.

Heroes and mortals alike fought like wolves at the heels of a giant, snapping, clawing, and dying so that their Primarch could fight one second longer.
Kairos roared, a sound like every prophecy screaming at once, hurling bodies away in a hurricane of psychic force. But still Angron came. Blood streaming from dozens of cuts, armor cracked, chainaxes clogged with ichor, but his fury did not break. He was not the mindless berserker of legend in that moment—he was the Butcher of Nuceria with focus, with purpose. Every blow he struck was for the boy who fell. Every scream was for the mortals who bled around him.

Kairos staggered. His shields cracked. His staff splintered beneath a two-handed swing that would have felled a Titan.
But he was not finished. Not yet. Even crippled, he was still the weaver of fate. And Angron knew—if the daemon could draw even a moment more of power, if he could regroup the strands of sorcery unraveling around him—then the Red Angel himself would fall.

And so Angron pressed, his legion and all of humanity pressing with him, in a war where honor had no meaning, and sacrifice was the only coin that could buy victory.

The duel ceased to be a duel. It became an execution writ across the desert sands, an execution that demanded the lives of thousands for every heartbeat of reprieve it bought Angron.

Kairos towered above the battlefield, feathers smoldering, ichor pouring like molten glass from the wounds Angron had already carved into him. His one remaining head shrieked in rage, psychic wards flaring in fractured patterns, each rune sputtering and breaking beneath the onslaught. He lashed out with storms of sorcery, talons scything like guillotines, but the humans swarmed him as if they were a tide of ants battering a god.

They climbed his legs, grappling hooks sinking into his torn flesh. Auxilia soldiers with bayonets and knives hacked into his ankles, their screams of pain drowned by the roars of chainblades. Militia men and women, their uniforms scorched to ash, hurled grenades into the rents in his body where Angron’s axes had torn deep. World Eaters leapt high on jump packs, burying chainaxes into Kairos’ wings and dragging them down even as they were ripped apart by warp-flame. Word Bearers sang litanies of vengeance while they poured bolter fire point-blank into his ribs, each shell blasting away feathers, ichor, and shimmering wards.

And when the daemon retaliated, when entire knots of mortals and Astartes alike were reduced to pulp and ash beneath a single psychic wave—new hands always reached for him. Always more climbed. Always more hurled themselves into his path.

A boy of Cairo, no older than thirteen, dashed forward with a kitchen knife, stabbing at the giant’s heel before being crushed beneath a single talon. His death gave an opening for Kirishima and three Auxilia troopers to slam a melta charge into the same wound. The explosion ripped tendon and bone, and Kairos staggered with a shriek.
Jirou’s screams filled the vox, her heartbeat syncing a dozen batteries of lascannons on Kairos’ breastplate. The beams struck like a hammer, searing holes through his wards just as Angron roared in and drove one chainaxe deep into the wound. The daemon reeled, ichor cascading in sheets of screaming light.

Above, a squad of World Eaters clung to his shoulders, hacking at his neck like lumberjacks felling a tree. Warp-flame devoured them in seconds, but before their bodies turned to cinders, they had opened the way. Kamui Woods lashed his limbs around the gash, pulling with impossible strength, forcing Kairos’ head low. Auxilia clambered up the daemon’s back, stabbing, shooting, clawing with their bare hands as if sheer spite could drag him to the earth.

It worked. Inch by inch, he bent.

Kairos fought like the beast of prophecy he was, psychic storms lashing the battlefield, each one killing hundreds at a stroke. But the humans were endless. Mortals with broken bones still clawed at him. Heroes half-dead from burns still threw themselves forward. Even the dying dragged themselves close enough to thrust a blade into his feet, buying another heartbeat.
And through it all, Angron pressed forward, never slowing, never faltering. His brothers might have seen him as a berserker, but here he was a force of inevitability. Every time Kairos turned aside his axes, another mortal dragged at his wings. Every time he summoned sorcery, another Astartes leapt into the blast and died screaming so Angron could close the gap.

The Red Angel climbed his mountain of sacrifices.

He struck again and again, each blow powered not only by his rage but by the tide of humanity that fed it. And as the duel raged, the reality became clear—this was not just Angron’s fight. This was humanity itself, clinging, dying, bleeding, screaming, holding the daemon still so their champion could strike the killing blow.
Kairos’ psychic aura flickered. His staff was shattered, his wings bound in burning chains of mortal hands and mortal sacrifice. He sagged beneath the weight of them all, and for the first time since his arrival, the

Weaver of Fates looked small.

The desert shook as though the Nile itself had leapt its banks.

A battered Leman Russ, its turret half-melted and tracks sparking, screamed across the dunes. Smoke poured from its hull, the crew long dead—save the driver, a conscript boy no older than sixteen. He didn’t slow. He didn’t flinch. He slammed the throttle forward, eyes locked on the towering shadow of Kairos.
The tank struck the daemon’s knee with a sound like worlds colliding. The detonator slammed down, and a fireball tore across the sands, blasting tendon and bone into burning ichor. Kairos reeled, one leg buckling beneath him with a shriek that rattled the stars.

The driver was vaporized in an instant, his sacrifice sparking a chain reaction.

Another vehicle roared forward—a Chimera with half its treads gone, soldiers clinging to its sides with meltabombs and krak grenades. It rammed into Kairos’ shin, and the surviving Guardsmen leapt free, throwing charges into the wound before being crushed beneath the daemon’s fall. The explosions tore open raw flesh, ichor raining across the sands like acid rain.
From the flanks came more—trucks, APCs, even civilian cars commandeered by militia. Each one drove headlong into the giant, engines screaming, payloads of men and women howling as they slammed into his legs and detonated. Again and again. One after another.

The sky bloomed with fire.

Kairos, the Weaver of Fates, the twin-headed terror of the warp, stumbled. His wards flickered. His wings flailed. And then, under the suicidal avalanche of steel and flesh, he toppled.
The ground quaked as he hit the sand, his body sprawling like a mountain in collapse. The humans swarmed him instantly, climbing onto his body, driving bayonets into his skin, planting demolition charges into his wounds. World Eaters hacked at his throat, their chainaxes howling. Word Bearers sang hymns as they emptied entire bolters into his face. Mortals poured fire and fury into every inch of him, heedless of the warp-flame that burned them alive in droves.

Kairos thrashed, shrieking with a voice that cracked reality, but he could not rise. For every mortal crushed, ten more clambered onto him. For every Astartes turned to ash, three more leapt onto his body. The swarm of humanity was inexhaustible, endless in its defiance.

Pinned beneath the weight of their sacrifice, Kairos raised his one surviving head—its beak cracked, its eyes glowing with hatred. He gathered his power for a final bolt, a psychic storm that would scour the desert bare.

But Angron was already there.

The Red Angel stood upon the daemon’s chest, his chainaxe Gorefather raised high. Around him, his legion howled, their voices drowned beneath the roar of millions of mortals screaming for vengeance. Angron’s eyes locked on the daemon’s last head, his lip curling in something between rage and grim respect for the mountain of bodies that had delivered him here.
With a roar that shook the heavens, Angron swung.

The chainaxe screamed, its teeth drinking warp-flesh as it bit deep into Kairos’ throat. The daemon convulsed, ichor spraying across the sands in rivers of fire. The axe ground through bone, feathers, and the screaming essence of fate itself. And then, with a final wrench, the head was severed.

Kairos’ death scream was a psychic detonation, shattering minds for miles, tearing the very air into shards of unreality. Mortals died instantly. Astartes fell to their knees, blood streaming from their ears. Even Angron staggered as the backlash burned through his mind.

But the daemon was undone.

Kairos the Fateweaver, favored champion of Tzeentch, was no more—his body collapsing into a hurricane of screaming light, dragged howling back into the warp.

The sands of Cairo ran red with blood, mortal and daemon alike, and upon the mountain of corpses, Angron roared his triumph, the severed head of a god raised high in his gore-soaked hand.

Notes:

I had drafted over a dozen ways this chapter could've ended, one where angron died to kill Kairos, one where all three brothers kill him, one where the brothers cripple him before the warlord titan crushes him, one where Ahriman even appears, infused with power by magnus to even the field for a little bit, I wasn't happy with any of them but this one. I hope you all believe I also made the right choice