Imperium Ascendant

Part 1: The Burden of Command

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Location: Y̶̺̟̹̍̃o̴̢̯̓̊̚ư̵̗̗̑͌ ̷̪̎c̵̮͑͘a̴̠̿ņ̶̬͑̎͆'̷̛͔̰̀ẗ̸̳́̚ ̸̼͝ë̶͙́͋́s̷̻̻̽͗c̴̯̤̐͛̃a̴̡̝̅͜͠p̵̢̜͈̋e̷̠̣̅͐ ̴̧̩͕͆̚͝m̸̮̜̫͑͝ē̸̥͠,̵̛̲ ̵̢̻̐̆̕H̵̩̜̅͝o̴̹̻̕͝r̴̰̐͜ụ̷̧͓̑s̷̜̑.̵̝̐͋̐ ̷̨͉͓͋̄I̵͓̓'̷̜̏͆̚m̸͇̘͇͂ ̶̣͚̓͂̀a̵͍͂̋͠ĺ̷͖w̶̞̒͘à̷̙̓͝y̷͕͆̋͠ͅͅs̵͍͘ͅ ̸̛̥̣͙̌̚ẇ̷̼i̶̛̗̩t̶̤͑h̵̖̚ ̷̰̠̬̈́̓y̶̝̩͋o̸̗̕̕ư̸̯͎̈́

Date: 894.158.M30

Horus' heart swelled with pride as yet another world knelt before him and swore allegiance for all time and eternity. The twin-headed aquila flapped in the breeze upon the massive flag that seemed to fill the horizon and the Primarch knew that there was no greater sight in the world.

Then the scene shifted, and this new world was not willing to bend their knees. They stood in defiance of Horus and all that he stood for. Their faces were a strange mixture of brazen disobedience and unadulterated glee that he was not their master.

"We are loyal to the Emperor." they jeered. "We shall never kneel to you or the traitors you lead. May death find you quickly, traitor."

Rage boiled inside of him, and before Horus could even process what was happening, he ordered his unseen troops to open fire. The bodies of the defiant people of this planet were shredded into a fine red mist, their blood swirling into a massive eight pointed star that seemed against all logic and reason to laugh as the ichor made it grow and pulsate.

"No... this isn't me." Horus groaned but before he could react his vision swirled in front of him and he was once again transported to a great hall, built by clearly alien design with the crudest of decorations and upholding the tenets of barbarity with a passion that a human mind could never possess.

Culain was fighting beside him, but his hands were different. They were metal, and it clearly wasn't some kind of armor. It was bare skin, but shining a bright chrome that was soon bathed in the blood of Orks that he killed with a massive hammer. Horus' vision swirled and he beheld his brother again, as Culain stood triumphant above a huge monstrosity, it's skull caved in to such a degree that it was almost unrecognizable as an Ork. His sons were standing around him, wearing black armor with a white hand for a sigil that Horus did not recognize. They were cheering, holding their bolters above their heads as they chanted in unison at their father's victory.

"Manus!"

"For the Gorgon!"

"Iron Hands!"

Before Horus could react, his world tore apart again, and he felt himself falling across space and time, before finding himself laying flat on the floor, clearly inside an Ork citadel. It was larger and more impressive than the last room he had been in, and was clearly the lair of one of their 'Bosses'. The questions as to what was its resident was soon answered and Horus felt his blood run cold when he saw it.

In front of him was the biggest Ork that Horus had ever seen. Easily ten meters tall and decked out in armor far too ornate and efficient to be of regular Orkish design. In his eyes, Horus could see a level of malign intelligence that he had never seen in an Ork before. In his years of fighting, the Primarch had seen cowardly Orks, cruel Orks, and even a few quick-witted ones. But never before had he felt the presence of an Ork that could truly fight and lead like a Primarch could. Seeing the beast before him, for it truly was a beast, Horus felt like he was facing a more dangerous foe that he had faced in over a century.

**You need me** a voice called out to Horus. It was familiar to him, but also horrifyingly different in a way that he couldn't quite place. **Look at it, you cannot defeat it on your own**

As he pondered what the voice was saying, the Ork rushed him. It moved with terrifying speed, and was upon him before the Primarch could even react. Horus was sluggish for some reason, and the Power Klaw the beast was carrying smashed into his side and threw the Primarch across the room. Pain radiated in his head as he struggled to rise to his feet. Horus was sluggish for some reason, and the Ork howled a cry of victory as it advanced towards him.

**Last chance** the voice warned, and Horus knew that deep down in his heart that he wanted to live. Without saying a word, or even making a movement to signify his intention. He gave his consent and accepted the power.

Immediately healing the wounds he had taken from the days-long battle that until now Horus didn't remember taking part in, the new power raised him up to the height of the great beast he fought against and even passed it in terms of might. With a thunderous roar, he leapt at the monster and tackled it to the ground. Not only did Horus seem stronger, but the monster felt weaker. Horus rained blow after blow down upon the creature, and soon its pleas for mercy turned into mere cries of pain, and finally into increasingly weaker gurgles.

Horus didn't just have new power. He was that power. He felt mighty. Mightier than he had ever felt before. Not even his father could take him on if he felt like this. The galaxy was his to take, and all he had to do was reach out and grab it.

But first, he needed to deal with the foe beneath him. Raising both of his fists up one last time, he brought them down with enough force to punch clean through a Themistar pattern tank. Bright red blood flew up into the air and Horus let out a primal roar of conquest and triumph. Yet as the blood started to fall back to the ground, he saw something else fly up into the air. Something that made his heart stop and his blood run cold.

He saw white feathers stained with blood.

Looking down, he saw that instead of an Ork warlord, Dante Uriael, his beloved brother and friend lay beneath him in armor he had never seen before. The great ruby eye on the front of the Artificer Armor was caved in by Horus' hands and a shattered spear lay in his grip as he coughed up blood weakly while looking at Horus with a gaze of utter betrayal and heartbreak.

"Just tell me why." he pleaded as he used the last of his energy to look his killer dead in the eye. "I loved you, and you killed me. Why?"

"I… no, this isn't right." Horus said, quickly rising to his feet and backing away in horror. "This isn't right at all. I was fighting an Ork. I didn't kill you. I could never!"

**But you did** the voice said. **You did, and you would again. That power felt good. And one day you won't be able to resist its call**

"What are you?" Horus asked, although he could not see whom he was talking to.

**You know who I am**

Horus only greeted that statement with a stony silence.

**Ah Horus, you are no fun** the voice chided, **at least not yet. Very well, I will humor you. Look out the window**

Horus did, but saw only a space battle, as massive of one that he had ever seen. Warships larger than anything he currently had in his fleet were ripping each other to pieces. Astartes were fighting Astartes and his stomach dropped when he looked at the planet below and saw that it was Terra. This was destruction on a scale reserved for the twin threats of the Rangda and the Orks, not for their fellow man. Something terrible had happened here, and Horus' ship seemed to be at its nexus. That still didn't explain what this mysterious voice was, or what he was doing here.

**Look closer, it is right in front of you**

Horus looked at the two ships locked in combat closest to him, but saw nothing out of the ordinary, nothing that would reveal this being's nature. Then he saw a trickle of blood, his brother's precious blood, running down the window from where it had handed after Horus' might blow. He caught his own reflection in it, and it made him jump back in terror.

He was wearing a massive set of armor, greater than anything he currently possessed with formidable weapons that seemed to ooze cruelty from every blade of his mighty power claw. The massive mace he held in his hand seemed just as evil, but Horus was used to evil things. His armor and weapons were not what frightened him, for those were to be expected in these bloody days.

What terrified him was his face. It looked exactly like the one he had grown accustomed to over the last few centuries with one minor difference. One that shook him to his very core.

In his reflection, he had both of his eyes, and they were mad with the light of unnatural energy. It was not his face, but the face of a future he had once thought averted. It was the face of Horus Lupercal, the Warmaster and Champion of Chaos.

**Ah, now you see me. You see me in all my glory and might. Time to wake up, Lupercali. I shall greet you again soon enough**

Location: The Vengeful Spirit, deep space in the Golgotha Sector

Date: 894.158.M30

Horus Lupercali awoke screaming. The Demigod thrashed in his bed, ripping apart silk sheets as he dredged himself up from unconsciousness. He hyperventilated as the final fragment of that terrible dream faded away. But was it a dream? It defied all logic and sanity, but Horus could not shake the feeling that it was something more than a figment of his imagination.

On Luna, when he held the direct attention of all four Chaos entities, they had shown him visions of a different version of himself. Horus Lupercal and all of his bloody deeds and memories had been shoved into Lupercali's mind. They were false memories. Though once true, the actions of his father had made them a timeline that would never come to pass, but that did not stop the memories from remaining. When the Emperor resurrected Horus after his sacrifice on Luna, he ensured that his son did not think the memories were his own actions, though by his own admission the Emperor did not remove the memories entirely, for that could have had grave consequences that not even Revelation could foresee.

Never before had those memories coalesced into a conscious figure. Never before had they so mocked him and shown him visions like that. Lupercal's memories were getting stronger, and that worried Horus. There was no metallic taste in his mouth that stank of Chaos corruption, and when Horus turned the flaming psychic eye he possessed since his death on Luna upon himself, he saw nothing out of the ordinary. None of his Primarch senses, so finely tuned to detect even the smallest changes both material and immaterial, told him that something was amiss. Still it did not comfort him. There was something wrong with him, and he worried about whether or not it was all in his head or whether there was an actual danger to him. On top of that, he couldn't decide which fate was worse.

Rising from his bed and preparing for his duties, Horus donned the plain, informal garb of his legion and made his way to the Command Center onboard his mighty flagship The Vengeful Spirit. Though each Primarch had such a center at the heart of their flagship, Horus and Eddard possessed one that was without equal among all of their brotherhood. It was a vast room, modeled after the theater-in-the-round forums of an ancient world few besides his father remembered. While most of his brothers possessed a similar room that had massive screens that could display anything that he wished. Specifically designed holographic projectors fabricated on Mars for his flagship alone displayed whatever Horus chose in three dimensions, allowing for an unparalleled level of detail and specificity that the Master of War used in ways only his brain could imagine. Cogitators, each the size of a city block, slaved away underneath the three hundred and sixty degree viewing areas, making calculations at the speed of light, assisted by a host of servitors that lent their power to its mechanisms. Running at full power, this machine, which Horus called the Lux Invicta, could observe, report, and dictate an entire theater of war. The XVI Primarch owed the speed and relative lack of casualties on multiple campaigns to this machine, and he was grateful to have it assist his genius in coming up with battle strategies. For while the Lux Invicta was a formidable tool of warfare, it was but an unthinking machine. It could offer suggestions of tactics based on data, but it was a pale shadow of its owner when making decisions. That burden, of commanding multiple Primarchs on this Great Crusade was a burden that Horus shared with few others.

It was that same burden that caused Horus to come to his Command Center. The Great Crusade against the Orks in the Golgothan Wastes was well underway and it was testing the very limits of Horus' genius to keep it functioning at the rate it had been. What was once thought to be a simple genocide operation against the brutish xenos had turned into a burdensome slog through unending green tides of Orks. Rumors and scattered bits of intelligence were pointing to the fact that Golgotha was the doorstep to the heart of the Ork Empire. They were certainly defending it with that level of intensity, and Horus knew that it would only be a matter of time before they broke through.

The one thing that Horus didn't have however was time. The Orks were getting stronger as their perverse psychic arts made them physically and mentally evolve the longer they fought. Brief conversations with his father had Horus' worst fears. If the current pace continued, not only would the Great Crusade find itself outnumbered as it had been, but outgunned and out maneuvered. They could defeat the Orks as they were, but what cruel and cunning paths would their evolution take them on that would leave the Imperium wholly unprepared to face the Greenskin threat?

This growing concern was what made Horus call this meeting, the only one of its kind and one that many Remembrancers would record as the greatest meeting of power in the entire Great Crusade against the Orks. For the first and only time, each Primarch on the crusade met in person at one place.

Horus stood at the focal point of the Command Center's stage while the Lux Invicta spewed out streams of information at rates that only his brothers could comprehend. Iskandar Baseilius, Tengri Khagan, Culain MacTursan, Baraca Themistar, Kota Ravenwing, and Ogadin Vulkan all gazed with rapt attention at the data streams in front of them while their senior Astartes officers respectfully waited their turn to provide input. Each of Horus' brothers reacted differently to the news. Iskandar gazed at all of the information and his eyes went wide at the glory, Tengri and Kota merely steeled themselves for the fight ahead and began coming up with their own strategies, while Baraca and Culain scowled and set their jaws as their righteous fury and determination became dangerously focused.

"Brothers," Horus began, gesturing to the projections behind him which signaled them to wipe away their data streams and transform into a grand image of the entire sector that covered nearly the entirety of the ampitheater. Golgotaha was almost evenly divided between the gold-colored sectors of the Imperium in the South and West, and the sickly green color of the Orks in the North and East. "It is clear from your reactions that you see the gravity of our situation. Our pace cannot continue as it is. Before long, we will lose our advantages and even if we drive these xenos from Golgotha, any attempt at cracking the Ullanor sector will almost certainly result in our destruction."

"This cannot stand!" Baraca bellowed, standing up tall as his sons murmured their agreement behind him while stomping their feet to signify their shared frustration. "Let us make one giant spear. I shall be its tip and let us break clean through this Ork menace and make for Ullanor before they can fully gather their power."

Before Horus could answer, he heard Tengri let out a small chuckle while shaking his head.

"Dear brother, nobody doubts your courage, but you are ill-suited for such an attack." the Outrider tutted. "Even if we could make such a maneuver, the Orks would surround us the moment we advanced and cut off our escape. We would wither on the vine, and not even your mighty prowess would get us out of it."

"But Baraca speaks the truth!" Iskandar protested. "We must make a decapitating strike before they muster their strength. Perhaps we should have the legions least adept as such engagements providing us cover. They can fight the main bulk of their might while the more inclined legions strike at their weak points."

"And I suppose you mean to have your legion be the one to take all the glory?" Kota Ravenwing snapped, his pitch-black locks perfectly framing the exasperated expression he directed at his brother. "How typical of your tactics. To a hammer, everything looks like a nail. I guess that to a Phoenix, every battle looks like an opportunity to further your own reputation and allow the Remembrancers to capture just the right picture of you in a perfect battle pose."

All of the Primarchs that remained sitting rose to their feet, defending their own positions or taking the side of a brother that they felt had been wronged. Astartes also joined in fray, shouting various insults at their cousins and at least two honor duels were proposed and accepted before order could be restored.

"ENOUGH!" Horus roared, his psychic eye flaring and his voice reverberating at tones that would have shattered the eardrums of any unaugmented humans within range. His brothers and their sons stopped their arguing and looked at their leader, with looks of varying shame and embarrassment upon their faces, ranging from an unrepentant Baraca to a harangued Ogadin.

Rogal Mauer and Alpharius Omegon were easily the equals of Eddard and Horus when it came to tactical brilliancy, but the reason that the Emperor's Sword and his Master of War were given commands of their respective crusade was their ability to make their brothers get along with each other. Each and every primarch loved one another as only siblings could, but that also meant they could fight and play dirty in the way that only a family member knew how. The Primarchs were not only physically the embodiment of human might and supremacy, but spiritually as well. Every emotion that human beings could feel the Primarchs could feel too, but at superhuman levels. The slights that human beings brushed off dozens of times every day the Primarchs could feel and relive with their perfect memories. The burning hot rage that humans felt when wronged but quickly cooled as they remembered their own frailty was not an issue for a human demigod. And it was Horus' job to keep those emotions in line, to soothe bruised egos and ensure that the perfect machine that was a Primarch's brain was never bored because it was not being properly utilized.

"All of you make points that I will take into consideration." Horus continued. "But it is my decision on how we shall proceed, and my decision alone to make. Our father put me in charge of this Crusade, and it is by His will that it continues. If you no longer have faith in my ability to lead by all means say so, but until that moment happens, you will obey my commands and enact our father's will. Am I clear?"

Each of them, even Baraca, nodded their agreement and took their seat again. This was the other side of the two-edged sword that was family. Nobody could fight you like a brother, but nobody could forgive and forget either. Horus reasserted his position as their Alpha, and their mutual love for him submitted to that command.

"Good." he grunted. "Now, let us continue."

With a few waves of his hand, the Lux Invicta divided its displays into three projections, which Horus pointed to as he started to rattle off orders.

"Baraca is right that we must have a lighting strike to decapitate their leadership, but Tengri and Iskandar are right that leaving them to surround us would be a mistake of the highest order. We must make them fight us at every turn, so that our strike may be masked by the sheer breadth of our general attack."

He zoomed in on the leftmost quadrant where green colored blobs teemed to the point where they almost blotted out the inky black of the deep void of space.

"Here is the planet our explorers have discovered was once a Dark Age of Technology planet named Megiddo, a site of a great victory that the Federation of Man claimed against the ancient Orks. It seems our foe has an ancestral memory that they wish to wash away. An attack here will make sure the Orks try to defend it with all their might. To do otherwise would be among the most shameful things they could do in their society. Iskandar, take Kota with you and show them the meaning of retribution. Your attack and subsequent defense of Megiddo will require precision attacks and hidden dangers that the Orks will stumble across and break their morale before your sons even pull a trigger on their bolter. I can think of no two better suited for this task than you."

Iskandar let out a small smile, his perfect teeth shining brightly as he visibly exuded enthusiasm at his given task. Kota was less obvious, but Horus had spent enough time around his younger brother to know that he was equally excited at the prospect of killing Orks before they even realized that they faced the Astartes of the Dark Raptors. Death unseen was not only efficient, it was terrifying to those unaccustomed to it and that was what Kota excelled in dealing.

"Our next target to distract the Orks will have the opposite problem that we face on Megiddo." Horus said, enhancing the projection on the right so that they zoomed in on a rust colored planet that was littered not only with the telltale signs of pollution, but also with the detritus of several void battles. "I'm sure you are all familiar with this one. This is the planet our Auxilia regiments have named Sorrow."

There were several noises of disgust made by the senior Astartes present at the mention of that planet. When the Imperium had first made their way into the Golgotha sector, they found that the Orks had managed to fundamentally alter the structure of many of the systems in the area through foul xenos technology. What was considered to be a minor planet in an empty system was now a veritable hive of industrial activity with all of the defenses and population that one would expect. Not only were the forces that entered into the system destroyed, the Orks were somehow able to track where they had come from. The entire Expeditionary Fleet was destroyed in a matter of solar weeks, before any other forces of the Great Crusade knew there was something wrong. The planet at the heart of the system had been renamed Sorrow, for it truly deserved the name.

Before Horus even began to speak of his plan for the system, Baraca Themistar rose once again from his seat, a look of lethal determination in his eyes.

"I am sure your plan is a good one brother, but I demand that I have the right to lead it when you give the order to attack." he stated firmly. "The Warhounds lost more Astartes in that Expeditionary Fleet than the rest of my brothers combined. They gave their lives so that others could escape and live to tell the tale. Blood has been spilled, and I demand the right to take it in return. Let the XII Legion lead your attack, and I vow upon all that I hold dear that the name of Sorrow shall be spoken of not just by humans, but by the filthy Greenskins as well!"

Horus nodded. It had been his plan all along to give Baraca such an assignment. The fact that his brother was so eager to have just made the arrangement all the more perfect.

"Take Tengri and his legion with you." he commanded. "His nature shall pair well with yours, and ensure that you don't do anything too reckless."

Baraca's bellowing laughter was good enough of an assent to Horus, so he turned to the final two remaining Primarchs that waited patiently before him for their own special duties.

"At last, we come to our main attack, which our four brothers are so valiantly going to disguise with their own bold actions." Horus said, looking at Culain MacTurnson and Ogadin Vulkan. "Our main target is the deceptively barren Gorm-2. A name which we have ripped from the pathetic excuse for a cogitator our enemy uses."

Gorm-2 became the primary projection as its sand dune covered landscape appeared before the assembled strategos. Looking at the planet alone, it would seem absolutely useless, a barren planet that was fairly common in the Milky Way, completely unimportant to the Orks. Looking at the system as a whole, the entire planet was bristling with defensive weaponry. Some of the most powerful ships in the Ork fleet of the Golgotha Sector were present in the system and the numbers that the Lux Invicta was putting up next to the planet said that this was one of the most well defended points that the Imperium had ever seen the Orks have.

"It doesn't make sense, does it?" Horus asked rhetorically. "We are certain that Gorm-2 has the most stable route to the Ullanor Sector in the entire segmentum. That is the only possible reason that the Orks are guarding it so fiercely. If we take Gorm-2, we have our way into Ullanor, and almost a decade before what our deadline would be for a possible chance of ultimate victory. It will be extremely difficult. Not only are there countless pieces of artillery blocking our way to the planet, not only do we believe there are millions if not billions of tunnels underneath the planet forming a web of habitats, but we also believe that their 'Beast' is on the planet."

Murmurs sprouted up all over the Command Center. Many of the Orks they had faced screamed that they were charging recklessly to their deaths because of a "Beast" that commanded their undying loyalty. No Imperial soldier had ever faced it and lived, but the psykers among the Lunar Templars had detected something of almost indescribable power deep within Ork held space. A chance to kill such a powerful leader and break the Ork's psychic warp field was too great of an opportunity to pass.

Before Horus could speak again, a vision appeared unbidden in his mind. A horrid beast, several meters tall, and composed almost entirely of mechanical parts was leering at him, screeching out a yell that was equal parts Binary and Low Gothic. Some instinct of his told him this was the Warboss of Gorm-2, the creature that held their war-field together. Cut off this particular head of the snake, and a large part of the Greenskins would wither and die.

"I shall lead the charge against this wretched place myself." Horus said, collecting himself and shaking free of these premonitions. "I perfected these sorts of rapid strikes aiming at decapitating the main body of an army from its leadership. The Beast will die, I shall see to it. Accompanying me will be-"

His dream from the night before returned to him. A great Ork, towering over him and only held back by his surrender to a terrifying power. Fearsome and brutal, he knew that this is what awaited him when he made his way to Ullanor.

But there was another vision he had, and one that was fresh in his mind at the moment. One of his brothers was going to, or maybe he already had in that darker timeline, achieve a great victory against an Ork of unspeakable power. Fate guided his tongue as much as his strategic acumen. He knew, without knowing fully why, that picking this particular Primarch would result in a far better outcome.

"Accompanying me will be Culain and his Stormbringers." Horus stated, collecting himself. His hesitation was only a heartbeat or less, and his brothers no doubt assumed that he was simply weighing thousands of variables against one another.

"What of me, brother?" Ogadin asked, his crimson eyes narrowed into slits.

"You, my friend, shall be preparing." Horus said with a savage smile. "With the rest of us striking all at once, we shall have precious little time to regroup while the Orks are still reeling. I need you ready to strike at Ullanor as soon as we take Gorm-2. We shall defeat them before they even know they are beaten!"

The Dragon Forged behind Ogadin Vulkan let out a thunderous roar of approval as they rose to depart, already discussing the best preparations for their hammerblow against the theoretical outer defenses of Ullanor. This is what they did best, burning away the filth of the galaxy in the name of Humanity.

The rest of the Primarchs and their Astartes rose as well, deep in their own conversations concerning strategy and teamwork. Horus had chosen well. His pairings were already working out wonderfully and the traits of the assigned Primarchs paired well with one another.

Culain motioned for him to come and discuss their own invasion plans, but Horus waved him off and with a simple nod told him that they would eventually meet, but that he needed a moment to himself.

He made his way back to his quarters, looking at the Spear of Longinus as he made his way to the washroom. That spear had given him back his life, storing his soul for his father to make his way back into his body. But now he worried that he brought something else back with him. He moved to his washroom and splashed some water on his face, trying in vain to refresh himself, because he knew that he wouldn't get another moment of respite for possibly months.

A servitor appeared and kept pinging insistently until Horus agreed to hear its message. Culain was growing impatient and demanded a meeting before moving back to his own ship. Horus acknowledged his brother's demand, and sent back a small reply that he would see him soon. Letting out a small smile at the sheer amount of responsibilities on his shoulders, he buried them deep within and made to leave his room.

As he collected himself and gazed into the mirror in his washroom before leaving, he thought for just a moment that his reflection didn't quite track with his movement. It stayed still for a nanosecond longer than Horus did, and it's grin was just a bit too wide and forced.

Horus didn't look in its face however, he knew that he didn't want to know the answer to whether or not it had two eyes. Honestly, he wasn't sure what was going to be a more reassuring answer. Whether there was something truly wrong with him or it was just his imagination didn't matter to him.

Horus Lupercali had a war to win, and he would handle whatever else there was to deal with after the last Ork on Ullanor fell at the point of his spear.

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