Disclaimer: Do not own Mass Effect or Warhammer and not looking to profit from this.
A Man of purpose
All Primarchs are connected to the Empyrean. That day whilst I was standing amongst my pack in the Great Hall, I saw my twisted brother. I do not know for what reason he had shown himself to me, but I gazed through his eyes to a place that doesn't exist. I know it doesn't, but it still gave me purpose. For we had all failed miserably. Father and sons blown apart like snow in a Fenrisian storm. I shall take it upon myself to look for the impossible, if one day our family and our folk can be whole again. I will seek it; I will search for "Lazarus" that you have shown me Magnus.
Fighting in the Empyrean.
I shan't lie. I have grown bitter and tired because of this undertaking. When I laid waste to my foes, I used to look back to my pack. Seeing the awe and proudness in each of their eyes gave me a sense of accomplishment that nothing else could. When I laid waste to my foes, I realized the effects of my actions. Ending another threat, another terror, another obstacle standing in front of the Imperium and its people. When I stood on the planets of the Imperium, I felt free. When I stood on the planets of the heretic and Xenos, I felt driven and brave. I will not say I am brave, that I am driven, and that I indeed served for what truly mattered and many other things that made this old wolf what he is. As only a fool would feel the need to say what is needless to be uttered.
It is a game really, talking to myself. After the millionth monstrosity banished and yet a billion still in line, even a Primarch feels like a farmer with just a hand scythe; asked to reap the corps of an entire damned agri-world by themselves. Years of gazing upon nothing but distorted figures and pushing back the creatures of the warp has not done well for my boisterous spirit. I am taken out of my musing with the arrival of the one person I have sought out. I had expected him to face me much sooner, especially after the heavily modified Lunar-Class cruiser I have obtained for this mission, which had turned into a space hulk due to all the deformed ships and warp constructs amalgamated into its hull, cleaved into the heart of his planet. I would be lying if I did not draw enjoyment from the destruction of the countless pyramids, twisted towers and minarets along with all the cultists and daemons within.
I started my search to find the thing named "Lazarus" a long time ago. After centuries, I decided to seek my goal in the Immaterium. As time does not flow the same within the Empyrean, I cannot say how much time had passed. My wolves who came with me on this journey stilled one after another. Claws, blades, curses, ailments unbound by reality broke their bodies but their souls never left my side. To this very point, I feel a ghost breeze from Fenris on my face and their very souls standing at my back. Now alone but not truly alone, I am facing the daemon that gave me purpose that day. Magnus.
If one thinks they know to what degree a trans-human can be changed, then they have never laid eyes upon this lost soul. There is not much to explain. Really. There exists not a single constant in the picture I am looking at. My trans-human senses and mind are sure however, that under countless layers of foul sorceries and mutations I am looking towards Magnus. In my revelation ages past, when I saw the opportunity to fix the Imperium and the Emperor, I was looking through the eyes of him. The information was shared between us due to the bond we have. A bond of hatred and anger.
My will is strong, as I charge forward, climbing over the slain, the world around me fixes itself. Liquid ground becomes rocky blackened terrain, acrid tentacles reaching from beneath the ground turn into rocky protrusions and the multi colored skies filled with kaleidoscopic lightning decide to dress themselves in a light shade of sickly red with patches of pitch black. That is the ironic thing about the warp. It is a realm of projections. It can assume many facets through thoughts and emotions of sentient beings. The chaos can be thwarted, undone or held back however, if one has the will to do it. A rare high point was when me and my company of venerable Wolves realized our weapons never ran out of ammo, and our armor and weapons had been constantly fixing themselves as our grim determination in purging the vile daemons bent the warp to our desires. In our presumable millennia of constant battle within the warp, such respite was certainly welcome.
I cannot help but think that my ideas about psykers may have been slightly misplaced. If they took the reins of the warp due to determination like my company had displayed, my mistrust was highly unfounded. Regardless, it all matters little now as I attempt my final plan to find the entity called Lazarus. I need the guidance of my brother, willingly or unwillingly.
As I approach the behemoth; the trickeries of the warp unravel. Magnus is wearing his old power armor Horned Raiment, his body crackling with psychic power. In his right hand is the Blade of Ahn-Nunura, the legendary Khopesh of his from the days when he was a loyal leader of the Imperium; if he had truly ever been one. He has additional garments that I do not recognize and horns adorn his head like a twisted crown. While battling in the warp for millennia has definitely thought me how to deal with the sorceries of the warp, caution is always advised when facing this particular Prince of Chaos.
I twirl Mjalnar in my right hand, its blade as dark as the starless night due to all the enemies it has slain. It sends small tremors up my arm, like the relic power sword knows the great battle to come and is shaking with anticipation. I aim Scornspitter, a bolter crafted by none other than Vulkan himself, and send three rounds down range in the time a mortal could only blink. The punishment I have unleashed could have splattered lesser daemons but bolter rounds are consumed by warp fire before they even reach Magnus. I charge as no words need to be exchanged. I have never been the talkative type when it comes to heretics, and Magnus most certainly knows what I have come for.
Demons and sorcerers arrive and congregate around us, but none interfere with our battle. I think I have made it quite personal when I crashed an entire spacehulk into his Silver Tower. He roars, the sound is a chorus of many voices, as the khopesh descends on me. I parry the deadly weapon, simultaneously dodging a ray of pure psychic energy unleashed from Magnus's very eyes. We strike a dozen times in the blink of an eye, throw each other through slabs of metal and stone but neither is willing to give. I have to admit; I can barely resist getting swept away by the massive psychic storm encircling Magnus. His powers are terrible within the warp and on the very planet owned and molded by him. A few of the sorcerers and deamons aren't so lucky, getting immediately vaporized by Magnus's hatred manifested because they came a bit too close.
I bare my fangs as lightning licks my armor, from whichever angle my strike may come, his blade parries mine with perfect timing. Warp trickery at its finest. I am blasted back by his telekinesis after the parry. I return with none of the vigor lost, dodging balls of warp fire and rays of fell energy to meet him again, and the whole process repeats itself. With victory seemingly guaranteed for him, my lost brother deigns to speak as I push myself to the very limits, now having swapped Scornspitter for the Axe of Helwinter.
"Ever the arrogant, ever the fool and ever the blind. Not a wolf but a rabid dog. It is lost on me how you ever hoped to come to my very own planet and force me to fuel your foolish hopes." To my annoyance, my artificer armor Elavatar has begun to disintegrate, the daemon prince's powers too terrible to bare. Next thing I know, my shoulder got struck by the beam unleashed from his eyes. When I shake the brief moment of unconsciousness, I find myself deep within the bowels of the Spacehulk being thrown through layers of metal and warp twisted organic material. I lay on top of the ruins of a sculpture within the church complex of the cruiser. With my father throne-ridden, men were quick to paganize the less-then-tangible Emperor as a God.
My shoulder is in ruins, and still warp energies bite into the massive whole punched through it. My trans-human regeneration can barely keep up with the rot. There is no more time to assess the situation as Magnus materializes in front of me with his Khopesh already in descent. I am barely able to meet it with Mjalnar in time. The Chaos prince pushes down, both of our muscles bulging and the intricate ground of the church cracking underneath me.
"Admit." He hisses. "You are guilty and weak. You pushed away the people whom are blessed with the gifts of the warp. You acted to destroy knowledge and turned your back to those who seek it. You wasted your gifts being the dog of the False Emperor. I spit on thee and your values. Tell me, what is the difference between a warrior and a violent errand boy?" He spat.
His taunts mean little to me, as I am all too annoyed to listen to them. I am angry that my body is failing to do the tasks I am giving to it. With one last gargantuan effort, I attempt to push him back. At first, he easily withstands me at my weakened and wounded state. Then something that neither of us expected happens. The crackling energies dancing on the skin of the Daemon Prince and the massive warp storm that had been tearing into the ferrocrete walls of the prayer complex vanishes. I see the spark in the eyes of Magnus, a realization of betrayal by the changer of ways for reasons neither of us know. Again I care little, because this moment of weakness, along with the shock experienced by the Deamon Prince lets me parry his Khopesh and sink Mjalnar deep into Magnus's chest.
The daemon, if nothing else, is confused. Even after sufficient time for a Primarch to evaluate their predicament over a dozen times elapsed, my lost brother looks at the blade stuck in his body with utter puzzlement. I move Mjalnar through his flesh, from where one of the presumable hearts located to the other one, no one knows if they are still there or if there are even more after Magnus sold his soul to the Ruinous Powers. I leave the sword in where his second heart is supposed to be as he stumbles away and grab my power axe in both of my hands instead. My shoulder is fixing itself now but I am quite spent. My eyes bore into the eyes of Magnus, and he meets it. All around us, from holes and breaking through the shut entrances emerge countless daemons, converging to our location. For all my trans-human intellect, it is lost on me why I have thought that this was a good idea. That is the last thing that crosses my mind before Magnus explodes with psychic energies that are even unprecedented for him and the rippling warp washes my consciousness away.
Descent into the New World
My consciousness caught up on me at a time that made it impossible for me to divine just what has occurred. First thing I realized was the fact that I was in the vacuum of space, not a pleasant habitat for most organisms but not a huge hindrance for my kind. The second thing was that I was not motionless, due to the fact that a space station in the shape of a spire smacked on an asteroid was getting progressively bigger. The structure looked akin to the shape of a mushroom cloud left by spaceship torpedoes during orbital bombardments. The base of the station was lit by a light shade of red and over all, it did not resemble any other space constructs I have seen in the Imperium. If I were to guess, I would say the inhabitant had slapped additional constructs upon a large mining base. Crude and unsophisticated, but still can't be judged as ugly. For me, such matters are not subjects to be pondered upon regardless. Lastly, I am no longer gripping the axe of Helwinter.
I was ejected out of the warp. After an assessment of the construct my gaze washed over the rest of the abyss. Apparently I was not alone, as Magnus was descending onto the same station with my sword still stuck to its chest, leaving large beads of blood in space. I had to wait until the artificial atmosphere of the asteroid is reached as there was nothing I could do to propel myself towards the traitor. So for now, it was just a wait filled with simmering rage, determination and confusion until the asteroid was reached with the velocity retained from the ejection. I just hoped that we pass through the gaps instead of smashing into the massive miles-long plates covering the exterior of the station.
My armor's outer layer was disfigured and corroded. The warp energies had disintegrated most of the runes, embellishments and protrusions of the armor. My left pauldron was missing, its once welded attachments to the torso and arms were warped outwards, indicating that it was ripped off due to the psychic beam that struck my shoulder. Some structural adamantium arcs still existed over the servos and other mechanical components of the artificer power armor. At the connection point of the torso and the pauldron plates was the hole through which my shoulder was struck. Aside from that, there were no breaches in the power armor, only countless dents, gashes and scratches from the assault on the Sorcerer's Planet and ones left by my battle with Magnus.
The speed at which the space station was closing in gave me an idea about just how fast our descent was, around couple hundred kilometers per hour. Then I contemplated on the size of the station, the spire from top to bottom had to be slightly lesser than forty-five kilometers in length. It was a confident estimation, as Primarchs were gifted in spatial cognition due to the fact that positioning and many aspects of battle, logistics and even rhetoric were strongly related to the understanding of space and distance. To sum up, we are gifted in the arts of war. And life is battle, life is war. Only the narrow-minded assumes that war is waged only with bolter and blade.
I pass between the protective plates of the station, Magnus now a couple yards away from me. The moment my body flung past the covers, the gravitational pull of the station turns my little space trip into a fall. I use the thickening atmosphere to get myself closer to Magnus who had just regained his consciousness with a gasp, purple tendrils emerge around his wound and knits the skin together. Mjalnar that is still stuck in its place however, prevents further mending of the wounds using warp sorcery. His enraged visage turns to me a bit too late as I am already upon him. I latch on to the overgrown traitor Primarch, maybe due to his descent into Daemonhood, I can care less; and put my fist where it feels most at comfort. Right on Magnus's face. I have come to learn that if you pummel a warp user with proper intensity, it is less likely that they are able to retaliate with sorcery.
In the Imperium I was praised as an excellent leader, but there is no logical explanation to why I assumed for a second that Magnus would be willing to elaborate on my vision. I might be guilty of exercising some "enlightened self-interest"; the awesome satisfaction I would feel when breaking the traitor's back a second time was and still is a great incentive indeed.
Even while being pummeled and with a power sword stuck in his chest, Magnus still manages to combust in warp fire. I am reluctant to let go or slow down, but that also means that I am burning with otherworldly fire every second I choose to keep latched on to Magnus. My hair singes down to my scalp, but my skin perseveres to a degree and the artificer armor is standing strong.
I twist him downwards right before we smash into one of the apartment complexes. Concrete and metal relents as Magnus and Mjalnar carve through the facet of the building with me on top. We descend further, only stopping after going through the surface and two levels down below. I can only move my eyes and stare and the fallen body couple feet away from me as smaller muscle groups realign my bones and reorganizes my innards. My senses, memories and higher functions are shutting down and coming back alive as my brain fixes itself section by section. A sudden clearance of mind comes to me, with no rage and hatred latched on to my thoughts. Most likely because my brain is too damaged to makes sense of such emotions right now, but it makes me refocus on why I have left my wolves a long time ago.
I want the best for humanity. I am capable of many things, but I will never understand the needs and future of humanity the same way the Emperor did. He must walk on Terra again, before people lose themselves in blind zealousy and the Imperium stagnate into a state of preservation instead of progress. I know very well that an empire has reached its last breaths when stagnation takes root in its organs. For the Imperium, the end will come after many millennia due to its sheer size, but I won't allow it. Should I fail, I shall face the Wolftime along with my wolves.
I steadily rise but Magnus stays sprawled on the ground. His arms and legs extended away like each limb is touching the corners of an imaginary square. His body is a mess, blood couple tones darker than his skin is smeared on every inch of his face and is also spluttering out around Mjalnar. The blood is pooled around the warped armor where the blade first struck and sheared through, it flows in many patterns whence there is not enough room for it to stay at place. Both of his horns are broken, his Khopesh nowhere to be found and eyes fixed on the hole we have come through. Magnus's eyes only dart to me when I stand tall over him.
"The leeches of the warp betrayed me. It could have been our salvation foolish brother. You loyal dogs have always been too ignorant to see the inevitable. Blind fools that punish the crimeless." Magnus whispered. It seemed that was the most he could do at his current state.
"We are all guilty of something traitor, but no one is beyond redemption as long as they do not give up on themselves. You have given up on who you are. Tell me what I want to know and die knowing you aided a real man." I said. I would have stomped on his face already, had it not been for the severe concussion making me more amiable.
"You cannot kill me dog, I shall live in the warp and far longer than you ever will in the end. I have cursed you already but you know not of it. Even after I told it to you, you know not the "what" of it. And when you are taking your last breath you still won't know the "how" of it." He sneered, but a whisper. I had to entertain him for all those wasted words half due to hoping to catch something of import and half because I briefly lost command of my extremities as repairs in my body went on.
I take a long look to what have been a Primarch then raise my feet and drop it. The ground cracks further as the traitor's head sinks deeper into the ground. I have to repeat the move a dozen more times before the skull actually relents. By now, he couldn't be looking up even if he wanted to as the head is rolled all the way backwards. I retrieve Mjalnar, still in good condition despite all it has gone through. The carcass turns pallid and crumbles, until the flesh is just a sickly purple pile of dust.
I look around the large hallway I was dropped in. The architecture, the materials that make up the walls… It is all different. Through my stay in the warp, I have come to have an additional sense for it. I still by no means get in "touch" with or "mold" warp, but prolonged exposure made me able to feel it. Right now, it feels subdued. No trace of chaos and cancerous entities I come to sense whatsoever. It is unsettling in a way I never expected myself to be disturbed in. In the end, there is no getting rid of the feeling that Magnus might have gotten the last smile on me. A useless thought, one is not one upped until they admit to it. Thus, I shall perish all thought that is beneath me. I have a purpose, I am able and I am in need of some Fenrisian mead and that is it.
Here is an idea that recently came to me. Lazarus Project brought back a man who was clinically dead. It is known that there is a legend in canon that stated Leman Russ left Space Wolves in order to find a way to bring back the Emperor. I like the idea that, the method could purely be a thing of science instead of some "Tree of Life" kind of concept. It was also not very hard to divert canon this way since "seeking the Tree of Life" legend is clearly inspired from Fenrisian myths which are inspired by Norse mythology. Therefore, it is very plausible to view that whatever revelation came upon Leman Russ, it could likely be about saving the Emperor and rest of the tale is the spin Fenrisian Space Wolves put on it. Let me know what you think. I have not read any Leman Russ centric books but know the cannon and personality through games and online sources. Thus, if you have substantial cannon knowledge of Leman Russ's personality from the books let me know with a PM or simply a review. I might use third person when looking through other perspectives and use first person in Leman Russ chapters.
The Mass Effect aspect of the cross over will be much more dominant in the future. I have played all three games but it has been more than a couple years since I played the first one. The story is set after first Normandy was destroyed.