A Lost Primarch
It was the 29th year of the Great Crusade. The Emperor, having already found and trained a two of his lost sons, had once again put his fleet on the move. His heading: a sparse star cluster near the galactic rim. He felt something calling out for him, a gentle psychic tug and whatever it was it intrigued him. The feeling of giddiness he was experiencing could be felt by the whole fleet and it was a feeling they had already become familiar with: The Emperor, beloved by all, had felt the presence of one of his missing sons.
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It had taken his personal fleet two months to reach the star system he had felt the psychic call come from. He sat on the bridge of the battle barge Terra's Light, commanded by Lord Admiral Migael Gutierrz, which served as his flagship. He had gotten the description of the star system and found that there existed many similarities between Sol System and the one the fleet had just recently entered. Ten Planets, many moons and an asteroid field in orbit between the fourth and fifth planets. He checked the scout ship commander reports one more time, radio and digital broadcasts. 'These people's development is about a thousand years behind from where Terra was when I gave humanity the Warp Drive, give or take a couple of centuries.' Noticing nothing out of the ordinary he continued scanning the report and saw some of the side, bolded comments made by the scouts: the planets, the moons! They were basically a replica of Sol! Now that was surprising and distressing at the same time. 'We'll have time to go about solving this mystery later on.' He thought.
"Are we approaching the third planet at full stealth Admiral Gutierrz?" He asked the fleet master.
"Yes your Majesty! I take it my Lord that you have read the reconnaissance report?" The Admiral replied.
"Yes, I have my dear old friend. These are strange circumstances we find ourselves in! A mystery! It's been a long time since I've been challenged to solve one and I find it a refreshing change of pace!" He finished with a broad smile that was so contagious it spread to every face in the enormous bridge.
One the techs manning the sensors suddenly spoke up "Your Majesty, Lord Admiral Gutierrz! We have a live pict of the inhabited planet and it's… My Lords, I'll just put it on the hololiths!"
The Emperor, for all his wisdom and millennia of experience, found himself with a stunned look on his face for the first time in many centuries. Before him, displayed by the hololith, was an exact replica of Terra. But it was not the Terra that humanity now knew, it was the Terra that The Emperor remembered from times long gone. It was a Terra with lush green forests, beautiful blue oceans and pearl white ice caps on its poles and for the first time he could remember The Emperor shed tears of both joy and sadness as he was reminded of the much simpler and happier times of humanity and a sad smiled adorned his face. "That is Old Terra." He said with awe hints of fondness in his voice. The officers, astropaths and crewmen present on the bridge would never forget this moment and they also had tears streaking down their faces, tears for their emperor. They now knew without shadow of a doubt that he could feel the very same emotions they could and this brought them closer to him as a result.
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"Do you really have to go alone Your Majesty?" Lord Admiral Gutierrz asked The Emperor as the mighty ruler prepared to teleport to the surface of the planet from one of the embarkation holds of Terra's Light.
"Are you insinuating that I cannot take care of myself old friend?" The Emperor replied.
"No, Your Majesty! It's just that…" He could not finish as he was interrupted by The Emperor "I know dear friend, it's just that you worry about another friend." The ruler of mankind said with a mischievous smile "Be assured that I will be in constant communication with you and I promise that I will be a good boy!" They both shared a laugh at his joke and the Admiral added his two cents "Just don't scare the natives. I don't think we want a repeat of Tulle IV!" They shared an even heartier laugh at the memory. "Don't worry Migael! Even an old man can learn new tricks!" He reassured his friend, one of his true friends, one more time.
"I'll be in contact every four hours and my transponder should tell you where I'm located at all times. You just hold the fleet together until I come back!" He said with another mischievous smile.
For his part the Admiral could only give a resigned sigh "Yes Your Majesty and I'll also read stories to the children before they go to sleep."
The Emperor laughed hard as he teleported to the surface of the planet and even after he was gone his loud laughter remained.
"How does He do that?!" The Admiral exclaimed to no one in particular as he turned around and headed back to the bridge.
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The Emperor, beloved by all, materialized in a secluded area of a park close to where he felt the psychic beacon calling out to him. It was a chilly night on this side of the planet. His personal tailors had replicated the style of clothing the natives used. He still remembered when he wore clothes like this, nearly thirty thousand years before and it made him feel… comfortable. Those had been more innocent times for humanity. There had been a feeling of hope for the future but that was all in the past. As humanity left its cradle it encountered hostile xenos hell bent on the destruction of men and after that things had gone down the drain with the coming of the Warp Storms that separated the colonies of mankind and heralded the beginning of Old Night.
He found it weird how he was reminiscent of those times now, especially when had not bothered to think of them for thousands of years as all of his thoughts had been focused on the survival of mankind and at the present time its reunification.
Suddenly he felt a presence behind him. He had been so absorbed in his thoughts that he had not felt the approach of this person but not only that he could feel the power coming from him, for in the darkness he had recognized the shape of a man. The stranger was the first to speak.
"I felt something powerful arrive I just didn't think it would be another human. You are human, right?
The Emperor, beloved by all, only stared at the figure as it approached and the sense of familiarity it gave him confirmed what he at first believed: Standing before him was one of his sons. 'He's one of them, of that there is no doubt but… I gengineered them, he should be taller and also, his body should look more powerfully built than this!' He thought as he answered his lost son's question "Yes, I am human. Why do you ask?"
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A group of females walked in the dark streets of Cleveland following a green blob of light in search of a man whom by all rights should know not to go out alone at night. The leader of the group was a brunette woman with a well shaped body and a beautiful face. Normally she exuded an aura of wild sexiness that only made her more appealing to men but at this moment she had a worried frown on her. She turned to one of her companions, a redheaded woman and asked: "So, Red, let's see if I got this straight? Xander just got this weird look in his eye, he got up from his seat and told you that there was somewhere he needed to go?" Red rolled her eyes "For the love of goddess Faith! Yes that's what happened!" Replied the exasperated woman "And you just let my hubby-toy go without trying to sop him?! What were you girls thinking?!"
"Uh, Mrs. Harris, I don't think even you would have been able to stop him! You didn't see the way his face looked! We tried to get up and follow him but he just told us to stay put! It was as if he had frozen us with a spell!" Sarah, a young looking blond girl answered back.
"A spell?! He should know better than to get involved with magic! Just wait until I get my hands on him!" Faith said to no one in particular.
"He did not use a spell! It was something different, it was… I don't know what it was but I'm certain that it wasn't magic!" The redhead known as Willow pronounced in defense of her Xander shaped friend/father of her boy/sperm donor "Whatever it was that got him all worried must be really serious… perhaps even more than when he faced me down at Kingman's bluff." The last part she muttered to herself but the rest of the group caught it anyways. You know, slayer superhearing and all that.
"Still, you should have stopped him! What if he gets hurt or worse… killed!" Faith said.
"I don't know why but I trust Xander's judgment. I mean there are so many strange things about him… like how did he freeze me on the spot I was seated?! Or years ago when he got hit by that Troll hammer that put Glory, a Hell goddess, down and he just got up as if it was nothing?! O-o-or when I threw my most destructive spell at him when I was all dark-veiny Willow, three different times and nothing happened to him?!" Willow started babbling.
"Wait a… you threw your most powerful, most destructive spell at him and nothing happened to him?!" Faith asked in wonder.
The red head could only nod. "Not only that, I've never seen him sick and haven't you noticed that my little Jesse is just smarter, stronger and also never seems to get sick?" She asked. "And it's the same for Liam, right?" It was now time for Faith to nod dumbly. "I thought it was because I'm a slayer but if what you're telling me is true… then it's because Xander is the father?" Willow replied "Yes! I mean look at Robin, he's the son of a slayer but he doesn't have super strength or any special abilities like super healing. He's like a super sperm donor!" The girls in the group just looked at her as if she was raving mad "Well it explains his unnatural stamina a-and I'll be shutting up now!" Now the younger girls had a look Faith instantly recognized "Don't you go getting any strange ideas about my man!" That seemed to snap the girls out of whatever fantasy they were having and silence descended over the group for the rest of the trip.
A few minutes later the green light went into a park and they followed.
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"Yes, I am human. Why do you ask?"
"Hold on for a sec there, are you sure?" he said while spinning his hands in front of him, for emphasis mind you.
"Yes, I am sure." The Emperor, beloved by all, answered.
"Wait a moment there I have a checklist for these kinds of things." The brunette man answered and reached for his coat only to pull a piece of paper. For the first time The Emperor, beloved by all, realized that his son wore an eye patch to cover the left side of his face.
"Are you an uber demon in human form?" A shake of the head.
"Are you a Hell god bent on recovering your powers and returning to your hellish dimension regardless of whether or not you destroy the human race?" A shake of the head.
"Are you some sort of incorporeal megalomaniac being in a quest to rule all creation?" Another shake of the head.
"Do you have any ill intentions towards mankind and our future expansion to the stars…?" The brunette trailed off "Damn it! I knew I shouldn't have let Andrew write this. It just becomes a geek fest after the fourth question!" The brunette complained.
The Emperor, beloved by all, could not help the laugh that escaped him. It was loud and long, full of mirth and a happiness that the ruler of mankind had not felt in millennia.
"No, I'm no daemon nor god nor spirit! Such things do not exist!" The brunette blinked.
"What are you talking about? Someone as powerful as you must have encountered them at some point?!" Completely confused, the brunette asked.
"No, they are only manifestations of the primal forces that exist in the Warp. They are manifestations of Chaos that people over the ages have attributed to the preternatural."
The brunette blinked, again.
"Well hello! I'm Xander! You know? You look familiar. Call me wacko if you want to but I feel as if I should know you." The brunette asked, again.
The Emperor, beloved by all, felt the presence of several women coming towards them and noticed that his son had also felt them and he fidgeted. He sensed that he did not want them to find out about… he dug in deeper into his son's mind… 'They don't know! And he doesn't want them to know!' A mischievous smile came to his face 'I'll have my fun teasing the young one. I can tell this will be fun!' "Of course you should! After all, I am your Father!" The Emperor, beloved by all, answered in a booming voice as he unleashed his psychic restraints and manifested his power and will in the real world just as the group came into the clearing.
The Emperor, beloved by all, turned to look at the newcomers, mischievous smile still present on his face and heard the brunette say "What in the hell is this honey? Star Wars?!" He could also hear the muttering voice of his son "Oh great! Now she won't give me any for keeping secrets!" The Emperor, beloved by all, once again began to laugh.
Finally understanding dawned on Xander's mind and soul and given the situation he could only say one thing: "Gee! Thanks a lot dear dad!"
The Emperor, beloved by all, knew that this would be one of the most refreshing experiences he would ever get. His son, Alexander was proving to be the source of much entertainment.