Ghosts of the Past
"We have fought the long war against Chaos without them for ten thousand years. New genetics? New weapons? Spawned from the work of a tech-magos trying to imitate - no, worse - to improve upon the Emperor's own labors? Battle brothers who don't even serve time in the scout companies or the Devastators before taking their place in the line? I neither trust nor need such warriors within my ranks, Pavras. Dorn's fist, they aren't even proven in battle!"
-Captain Dysorian of the Imperial Fists.
Darkos observed from the bridge of his Battle Barge as the Chapter fleet broke from the Warp into the enemy system. Three Battle Barges and five Strike Cruisers with their escorts in the colors of gray and blue emerged from the torment of the Empyrean in the mandeville point and started their slow approach towards the system's core worlds.
As the ships pulled into high anchor and battle stations above the enemy's home world, he observed the enemy fleet in the distance above the same radiant world. He oversaw the preparations for battle before departing from the bridge for the stormbird that would take him to the surface to face the enemy.
Darkos' stormbird, its sister crafts and the escort fighters descended from the orbit through the gray cloudy skies into the landscape below. As they landed, and Darkos embarked at the head of his battle brothers into the landing pad, he could see the enemy fortress towering in front of him. It had been his home, once, in a better age. He removed his gaze from the fortress to lock his eyes with the enemy.
The Chapter Master of the Imperial Sentinels approached to meet Darkos, a brotherly smile on his face. "Darkos!" Trimodrius said as he closed the distance and reached out his hand to clasp Darkos' hand in a warrior's grip. "It has been too long, brother. I could not believe my ears when they told me of your fleet's arrival to the system. What brings to me this unexpected honor." Trimodrius took in Darkos, focusing on his the color of his relic armor, and then on the three squad's worth of honor guard warriors behind the Chapter Masters of the what had once been the White Sentinels, successor to the Imperial Sentinels. "You bear different colors and symbols than the last I saw you, brother."
"It is a new age, and my Chapter has deemed it fit to enact some changes because of it," Darkos replied stoically. Gone was the white of the White Sentinels, replaced by the gray and dark blue that he and his Chapter now bore. Gone were the two skulls and the fist, replaced by the stylized skull that was split in half in the middle.
"I see. It is a new age for us all, and I do not doubt you judgement in how to lead your Chapter through it," Trimodrius replied. "What is it that brings you to the homeworld of the Imperial Sentinels, brother?"
Darkos did not reply immediately, his gaze lingering in some of the warrior behind Trimodrius, bearing the gold and white of the Sentinels. More precisely the abominations that stood shoulder to shoulder with the proud sons of Rogal Dorn.
"A very important matter, one that is of unprecedented importance. I would like to share it with all your captains and senior officers present. It has been centuries since I last saw Akodas or Morlan."
"Morlan is dead, brother," Trimodrius said, the words causing some emotion to show on Darkos' face for the first time since his arrival. "He fell in battle against the Archenemy more than a decade ago. He is entombed within the halls of glory. Sarod is the new Reclusiarch as his successor."
"He was a great man, one that I would have seen fighting by my side again once more," Darkos said with a heavy heart.
"He will be remembered," Trimodrius said. "Come, brother, let us summon the your old brothers and the new officers that have risen to fill the ranks since the succession of your Chapter."
"Yes, let us," Darkos said with a face of stone.
The chamber was filled with Astartes of the Imperial Sentinels. Captains from first, third, fourth, and sixth companies were there, as were the Chief Librarian and the Reclusiarch. Line sergeants and the Chapter honor guard stood in saluting formations, lining the walls of the great chamber. Darkos felt anger at the sight so many abominations among the warriors standing to greet him.
Trimodrius moved to stand in the center of the chamber, flanked by the senior officers of the Chapter. He motioned towards Darkos while addressing the warriors in the chamber. "Welcome back, Darkos of the White Sentinels! We welcome you and your warriors as a brothers to the the Chapter you once served. We are honored to meet you, and are waiting for the word you have come to share with us. Speak, brother." The chamber was filled with greetings and shows of respect. But the gray clad arrivals remained silent and immobile.
"We are the White Sentinels no more," Darkos said finally, as much of the volume had died off. He took forward with slow steps, moving towards the captains of the the Imperial Sentinels. He stopped in front of one particular officer, the captain of the third company.
"It is good to see you, Darkos," the thing that had once been captain Akodas said.
Darkos looked at the thing that bore his brother's face, at the thing that had once been a great man, a brother who Darkos' would have died for. A warrior held in esteem by Darkos like no other.
Tears started streaking down Darkos' face as he beheld his brother, causing a silence to spread into the chamber. He had to look upwards towards the much taller figure, had to look up along the Mark X power armor cladding the Primaris Marine to see the face he remembered from years long past. He saw what his brother had become, and he cried at the sight of it.
With slow and purposeful moves, Darkos lowered his hand to the hilt of his sword, and pulled the weapon from its sheath in a ceremonial way. He held the relic blade in front of him ritualistically with the tip towards the high ceiling of the chamber, tears still flowing down his hard features.
"I was given this blade during the founding, when I was chosen to lead a new Chapter," Darkos said, his voice steady despite his tears. "When the Imperial Sentinels birthed a proud successor and White Sentinels were created. I was trusted this blade along with the duty and responsibility of a Chapter Master. I have served with honor through long years of war, leading with all the skill and resolve that I possessed…"
Darkos looked at Akodas through his tears, looked at the face behind the blade of his sword, looking at the man who had been recrafted with the seeds of abominations, retrofitted with the blasphemy most foul.
"And I intend to continue doing so, in this new age..." Darkos tilted his sword in his hand, igniting the disruption field of the weapon and slashing it at Akodas. The relic blade split the skull and chest of the Primaris Marine, killing instantly the man that had once been the most important brother to Darkos.
The air of the room exploded with light and displaced air of teleportation as sixty gray clad terminators bearing the split skull against blue appeared out of nowhere, guns and power weapons ready. In the next moment the chamber was filled with the sound of a hundred bolt weapons opening fire at the Imperial Sentinels.
Darkos was moving, spinning his sword and killing the captain of the sixth company before the warrior had even had the chance to reach for his weapon. The Imperial Sentinels tried to defend themselves, but they were taken by total surprise by an overwhelming force, and thus they died, one by one. Darkos' tears were still falling as he slew another Primaris Marine with blows fueled by hate.
The warriors of Darkos' honor guard moved out from behind him and engaged the Imperial Sentinels with their power weapons, roaring their hatred and sense of betrayal, targeting especially the Primaris Marines among the enemy. They were fast, they were strong, these new abominations of Cawl. But they died all the same when veterans of centuries of warfare came for them.
In a moment, it was all over. Every single Imperial Sentinel and Chapter serf in the chamber was dead, and terminators were already moving to spread the purge further out from the chamber into the rest of the fortress. There were no windows, but if there had been, Darkos would have seen the sky darkened by steel rain as gray blue drop pods and gunships fell upon the world of the Imperial Sentinels. In orbit, the fleet of Darkos world be engaging the fleet elements of the other Chapter, boarding and starting the killing in space as well.
Only the Chapter Master of the Imperial Sentinels remained alive in the chamber, all the other gold and white armored warrior lay dead. Trimodrius was kneeling between two gray honor guard Astartes, his legs and one of his hands severed. He looked up at Darkos with an expression of horror and disbelief. "Darkos… what… what madness is this?" he asked with pained voice.
Darkos looked at the man who had he once fought beside, whom he had lead the Chapter with as captains, who he had bled and killed with. "You should have rejected the abominations of Cawl when they were first offered to you…" Darkos said. "You should have rejected the blasphemy of Guilliman and the things he said were your new brothers. You should have killed the Primaris when they arrived to your Chapter and claimed the Geneseed of Rogal Dorn from their foul bodies, like I did."
"What… What are you talking about? Have you lost your mind, Darkos?" Trimodrius asked with despair in his voice. "This… this is treachery... Heresy… you are betraying everything we stand for..."
Darkos raised his relic blade.
"Gulliman is the Lord Commander of the Imperium…" Trimodius cried. "He speaks with the voice of the Emperor!"
Darkos looked at his former brother with dead eye. "There was a man once who also claimed to speak with the voice of the Emperor and brought ruin to the Imperium" Darkos said with a cold voice. "His name was Goge Vandire."
The relic blade fell.
Darkos reached down with the gray ceramite gauntlet of his right hand, his fingers squeezing around the gorget part of the helmet belonging to the dead warrior at his feet, and he wrenched the helm away with the sound of suffering metal. The foul look of the Mark X helmet sickened him.
All around him, the homeworld of the Imperial Sentinels was burning. Those Marines who did not chose to stand with him, were being purged by his Chapter, their Geneseed retrieved and their armories emptied, their fleet assimilated. Some, a small minority, of the Imperial Sentinels had chosen to join him when he had broadcast his message across the system. They would be welcomed to his growing Chapter as brothers who remembered the ancestors. The Imperial Sentinels were no more.
When the purge was done, he would burn the world from orbit, and retreat to his own Chapter's space near the Great Rift that had split the galaxy. He had already destroyed another Chapter of his own geneline, and added their resources to his own growing domain. After this world, there would be another, another world of failed brothers who had cast their lot together with the abominations. They would suffer the same fate.
The White Sentinels were gone. Now they were a Chapter of vindictive force who remembered the ancestors and rejected the corruption of the new age. They were ghost of the past. They were the Revenants Chapter.
This was a one-shot story about the Revenants renegade Chapter, born out of my hate towards the Primaris Marines and all they represent.
The quote of Dysorian at the beginning of the chapter is from a novel Shroud of Night. As if I had not already enough reasons to read it already.