Author's Notes: Thanks to Extartius for his helpful advice for chapter one. It caused me to rewrite a large portion of this chapter. Please read and review. Thank you.

Chapter 2

The rattle and shock of the drop pod threw Jayms against his restraints and threw his mind back into focus. He looked across the cramped pod at his other squad members and watched them closely. After the briefing he watched all of his troops run off to their stations and he began his own preparations.

The first stop on the way to the drop pods had been the chapel. There Chaplain Rasza had ministered to him. He and the Chaplain had an…interesting history. They never got along. When it came to matters of the Space Marines they were in complete agreement but in everything else they could not agree. Especially in matters of faith.

The Chaplain had joined them from Cadia after the end of Abbadon's Crusade. He had walked up to the Imperial Command post carrying the head of one of Abbadon's highest commanders. After an extreme and in-depth psychic investigation by the Psykers of Segmentum Command he was found to be extremely faithful to the Emperor and he also seemed to be very devout. Also, he possessed an extremely rare suit of Chaplain Terminator armor. His affinity with the Dark Crusaders had convinced his Chapter Master to allow him in, that and the fact that he possessed all of the Dark Crusader organs had been another factor. Jayms, however, had begun questioning why this stranger had so easily gained access to a Space Marine Chapter.

Clang!

The feel of his skull bouncing inside of his helmet quickly brought him back to the present. He quickly stole a glance at the drop counter on the inside of his helmet. The numbers, indicating their distance from the drop zone, were rapidly descending. So rapidly in fact that they started to blur. He had just started guessing where they were at when the twenty-second warning went off and he braced himself and saw the others do the same.

The rattling got worse and worse and then, without warning, the pod shook violently and rattled and then stopped. Jayms took a deep breath, counted to three, and hit the open button. Out poured his troops onto the battlefield. All around him he could hear bolters firing and see the pavement and ice chip, shatter or explode. He stole a quick glance at the sky and saw flights of Thunderhawks descending, carrying the heavy armor and tanks that they would need for the coming battle.

As he did a Guardsman ran up to him with a lasgun. Jayms calmly pointed his bolter and fired at the man, his flak vest absorbing none of the high speed bolt as it tore him to shreds. He ordered two squads up to assault a Guardsmen position and felt the ground rumble as a loyalist Leman Russ rumbled into firing position. He heard a yell and watched as the shells from the Leman Russ obliterated a bunker. He ordered more troops and equipment brought down from the fleet and watched as more flights of Thunderhawks dropped off tanks and heavy support equipment.

Bringing his full attention back to the battle at hand he noticed a squad of traitorous Guardsmen setting up a heavy bolter emplacement in a nearby tower. Jayms began to frantically look for one of his heavy weapons teams when he felt the ground tremble near him.

He turned around and stood looking into the optical slit of Ancient Tycor. Four thousand years ago, back when the chapter was first being formed, a large Ork force attacked the home planet of the Dark Crusaders, Destro. Furious fighting enveloped the planet and even the fortress-monastery was under siege. During the siege Tycor and his squad charged out one night, in the hopes of killing the Warboss and ending the siege. Tycor had charged and had killed the Warboss, but lost his whole squad and most of his body in the process. The chapter's apothecaries, having deemed that as an act of true herosim, and under orders from the chapter master, had entombed Tycor's body inside of the shell of a Dreadnought. Now he fought as a machine, never resting, never tired and ever vigilant.

Now he also was known as one of the most revered of all the Crusader veterans. For this reason Jayms treasured not only his wisdom and guidance but also the assault cannon attached to his arm, and the servo-claw on the other arm. No words passed between the marine and the walking tank he stood by. Jayms nodded and Ancient Tycor rotated his torso.

In the tower, a Commissar begin yelling orders to his troops. One of them picked up a crate of bolter shells and suddenly disappeared in a red cloud as assault shells tore through the rockcrete and plasteel walls of the tower. The Commissar looked at the remains of the man in amazement for a second.

It was a second too long.

The cannon salvo had been a distraction so that Ancient Tycor could make his way to the base of the tower. As he did a Guardsmen jumped out and tried to stick a grenade in his fuselage. Tycor spun and grabbed the man with his servo-claw. The man began to scream as Tycor rotated the claw faster and faster and then threw the man up in the air. He screamed as he flew up and then screamed again as his body landed on the top of the Commissar. The Commissar shook him off and looked over the edge to see an image of horror.

Tycor began swinging his claw into the tower's base over and over again. Finally he found the main plasteel support beam. He snapped it and began to quickly move away from the tower. The Commissar began laughing, not knowing what he did, and he ordered his troops to begin firing on the war machine. They had sighted their weapons when one of them let out a chilling scream. The Commissar turned and looked and watched sections of rockcrete fall down on top of his troops. He looked and watched in horror as the floor that he was standing on began to crumble and crack and he screamed as he fell down nine floors.

Jayms watched all of this with a smile on his face. His forces were rapidly coming near to the walls of Iceflow itself and he couldn't be happier. He turned and watched as an Imperial Guardsman lifted his lasgun and fired point blank into the stomach of a traitor. He watched as massive Ogryn lifted chunks of falling buildings and used them to crush their opponents.

Basilisk artillery fired massive Earthshaker rounds into the city walls and Jayms watched as towers, built to house cannon emplacements, collapsed. He ordered more troops forward to fill gaps in the lines and he watched his troops steal meter after meter of ground from the traitors.

Hearing a loud explosion he turned towards the city walls and watched as two Imperator-class Titans pounded them into oblivion. Over and over again plasma cannons and turbo lasers and volcano cannons fired into the walls. He was just about to charge the walls when he heard a faint clicking sound. Tuning out everything else he focused on finding the sound. He searched high and low across the battlefield. Yet every bunker he walked into was empty of sound. Every crater had only the hollow ring of death to it. He was about to go mad when he noticed a dark figure run into the ruins of a nearby building. Temper flaring he ran in after it.

As he entered the ruins he clicked back the locking bar on his bolter. The ruins were dark except for the occasional flash of explosions outside. As Jayms ran further inside he could…feel the presence of someone else there. He began searching high and low for them, whoever they were. He checked the bottom floor first. Its blown out walls evident of the heavy fighting that had gone on inside of it. As he ran up the stairs he felt something invade his mind.

He jumped back down the steps, just in time to be hit by a blast of psyker energy, leaving him immobile and lying on the ground. As he lay there he could see a dark figure, wearing heavy robes, come around a corner and look at him. The figure's face was hidden by the hood of his robes and not even the flashes of light from the nearby artillery could illuminate it. When he spoke Jayms felt an odd sense of peace come over him.

"Hello Captain. You don't know who I am but I know who you are. You have been lied to about this planet. It is not what you have been told. There is no taint of Chaos here. The archenemy is not here. In this instance Imperial Intelligence was wrong. The reason that you are here is completely different than what you think."

Jayms looked at the figure in a mixture of anger and awe. How he knew what the Imperium was there for was amazing. He must have been a psyker but how one so large could have escaped detection on an Imperial world was beyond him. The figure turned his head, as if listening to an oncoming sound. He turned towards Jayms and looked at him and then hurried out. As he did his lingering voice remained for a moment longer.

"We will meet again captain."

Jayms lay there for another hour before one of his troops came and got him.


Admiral Jovavich sat in his quarters and stared out the view port at the Eye of Terror. As he did he felt the pressure in the room change and he turned around slowly. Standing behind him stood Rasza, wearing his Chaplain Terminator armor.

The admiral could not believe the sheer superiority that this Astartes must have to enter his chambers! Especially unannounced! Yaris could not keep the anger out of his voice.

"How dare you enter my sacred chambers! Who do you think you-"

A harsh scowl shut the admiral up quite quickly. He trembled in anger at what this marine had dared to do!. As he watched the figure began to change. His armor grew more sick and far more cruel. The figure looked at him and flicked back its long ponytail, strung above his head in an adamantium tube. He turned his attention back to the admiral and let out a little laugh.

"I have come to take command. It is time that this war came back under the command of its true masters. Your…gift…is given you."

Then Yaris let out a scream and grabbed his head as long talons burst from his back and the skin on his body mutated. Rasza watched all of this without flinching. With every scream he smiled more and more. The admiral's torment was…delicious.

As the admiral's mutation finished Rasza could feel pressure changes as Chaos Space Marines warped onto the ship. He could feel Chaos beginning to infect every small part of the warship, feeling the horror that was slowly enveloping it and changing it. Now it was time to show who he truly was!

Abbadon the Despoiler smiled. His Black Crusade had been stopped by the…creature before him but now that creature served him. The admiral, if you would still call…it that, writhed in agony. Abbadon laughed.

Now was the time for his forces to show their true face! The face of Chaos Undivided!