AN: This takes place a few years after the Last Snippet.
Responding to the same reviewer, huh never really thought of it that way, as mentioned before this was inspired by the Templin Institute's Video on the Imperium of Man and to some degree the Horus Heresy novels, I guess in a way they are Proto-Primaris marines. Not the way I meant to do things but now that I've thought it over that's technically true.
I am going with "Storm Wardens" as their name for several reasons:
One, They're based in future Segmentum Obscurus, Canon!Storm Wardens are located in the Calixus Sector and there were several minor yet extremely dangerous Xenos species that the XI Legion going to deal with in the Imperium fashion (Read: Kill them all or try very hard to get close to it).
Two, Albrecht conquers Northern Obscurus in this AU, meaning that Canon!Storm Wardens won't exist
Three, The name "Tempest Blades" is admittedly a nice sounding name for one of the unit formations that they get.
On a final note: Maybe I was too obvious but the Raptor Imperialis (First Image when googled) will be their Sigil, but their veterans of the Unification Wars paint their Symbol gold (The only decorative ornamentation they wear on their armor)
Terra, site of the future Palace
The Sigilite was confused, after the destruction of the Sixteenth Thunder Regiment, the Emperor devoted more time to his Primarch Project, working away in the labs on the second generation. He had completed it at as far a Malcador was aware, enough so that he had directly intervened when he learned of how the Imperial Army was locked in a stalemate with Old Albia. Impressed by the capabilities of the Albians the Emperor ordered a ceasefire and negotiations. By the end they had willingly joined the Imperium.
But then Tragedy struck, for reasons unknown a warp rift opened up in the Emperor's laboratories, where he kept the gestation pods of the Primarchs. According to the Emperor they had been scattered across the stars, as such he ordered for the last of the twenty planned Legiones Astartes to be built.
Like many things, for reasons unknown he had ordered the Eleventh Legion to be prioritized in terms of recruitment. At first there was no issue, there were many potential recruit so simply gathering ten thousand was a simple task.
Recruits were taken from all parts of Imperial Held Terra: Merica, Old Albia, the Nordyc, Tupelov of Ursh even drawing from the handful Xerican tribals .
Then it all went wrong, out of the ten-thousand candidates less than three thousand survived the process. Malcador had remembered that the Emperor wanted them established before the others so he had the geneticists look into the Eleventh Legion Gene-seed. There were definitely mutations compared to the other Astartes Gene-seeds but the Emperor had already left record of the mutations and aside from the known mutations there was nothing amiss.
Malcador set aside the Dataslate and picked up a different one.
He looked at the problem from the other angle, why did less than three thousand survive the initial process? He had looked at all of the collected data on the survivors , he noticed that only the Albian, Tupelovian and Xeric Tribal candidates survived.
Malcador frowned.
The whole point of diversifying candidates for each legion was to avoid them creating an identity without their Primarch. All of the Tupelovian Candidates had already been implanted so there are no spares, The XI was given all the candidates they could take from Xeric which were only a few hundred, more eligible candidates would come but that would not be for another decade, all that's left are the Ironside Clansmen from Old Albia who were meant to reinforce the Eighth and Tenth Legions.
And that was the problem.
Old Albia was one of the Imperium's stronger rivals, second to Narthan Dume, while the Ethnarchs of Caucasus could count as a threat they were not a immediate threat as they preferred hiding in their underground cities. Dividing them amongst the legions was priority but now it seems he's going to have gather them to form this Legion as they seem to be the only ones who've consistently survived the implantation process.
He had taken one look at the Gene-seed of the Eleventh and he immediately realized what made them different from others. Their modifications were akin to that of the Thunder Warriors rather than Astartes. It was clear that the Emperor had refined the Thunder Warrior Implants and integrated it when working on the Eleventh Primarch. The mutation of their gene-seed must have been a side-effect of integrating Thunder Warrior modifications.
He was trying to repurpose a sledgehammer into a great-sword.
To begin with the Ossmodula was mutated, rather than the standard fusing process their bones grow and harden to be almost twice as durable than the intended effect. The only way to describe their Larraman's organ would be to say that it's overstimulated, in theory if the implanted Astartes in question was the verge of death the Larraman's organ would go into overdrive, instead of rapidly sealing wounds it would rapidly healing them and unleashing a surge of adrenaline into the system of the Astartes.
Now there were potentially negative mutations, the Catalepsian node is mutated, The implanted Astartes would have to sleep for longer than average time. The Omaphagia has outright degraded from the integration and the Betcher's gland mutated resulting in the generated acid working only on inorganic materials
One of the few saving graces was that the Gene-seed of the Eleventh had a lower restriction in terms of age, several of the successful candidates were in their early thirties and the average age of surviving candidates was in the early twenties. Aside from the mild surprise on the lack of oversight on the candidates age it was a welcoming boon.
Despite these mutations and degradation in organs, on paper this was an Astartes that could potentially be deadly if not more so than the others, and that was what worried him as most of their recruits come from a people who not only acted as the feared enforcers of warlords that rivaled Narthan Dume but a force that outright challenged the Imperium and forced it to back down.
Up until the Emperor spoke with them the Albians were fiercely independent and insisted they would bow to no one.
And now?
Now they bow to the Emperor, Malcador was not certain of their loyalty and wanted them to be split up amongst the Legions rather than concentrated into a single force. He knew the Emperor would not care for such things, if majority of the Eleventh had to be composed of Albians the Emperor would allow it. He did not care for such politics.
Malcador had to send out a few messages and have several of the Officer candidates sent to him.
Amadeus was confused.
He was originally assigned to join the Tenth Legion, several of his comrades had already gone through the process and were now training with the rest of the Tenth.
Then before the implantation process could begin he and many others were yanked out, now he was waiting in a room.
Then a man entered the room, based off of his appearance, DuCaine believed he was a scientist, most likely one of the geneticists responsible for overlooking the Astartes creation process.
What surprised him was the information he started rattling off.
'Amadeus DuCaine, son of General Roland DuCaine, Age: Twenty-one. Like all youths the Rulers of Albia had you conscripted into the Army. Began training at the age of fourteen, Shortly after completion of training your father and a number of other Albian Generals overthrew the Unspeakable King's descendants. Participated in the first defence of Albia against the Imperial Army at the age of Seventeen, due to the deaths of all military officers in your theatre of the defence, you were placed in charge.'
That was not what DuCaine expected to hear. It had only been two years since Albia had surrendered to the Imperium, there was still stigma aimed at the veteran Ironside Soldiers faced for inflicting so much damage on Imperial Army. He distinctly remembered being forced to use Rad Bombs and Phosphex in an attempt to drive back the Thunder Warrior Assault, it was successful but they lost a lot of men .
'The Gene-seed current Astartes Legions in service have a cut-off of age sixteen with eighteen years being the absolute limit. Any older and you face potential complications or even death.'
DuCaine's breath hitched, he was clearly over the cut-off age by three- no in a few days four years. Part of the reason he agreed to become a member of the Legiones Astartes was to better serve the Imperium.
'The Emperor has mandated that the next ten Legions be built. However complications have arisen with the Eleventh Legion resulting in a large number of their candidates dying. Thankfully however, more stringent procedures have allowed us to identify who can survive implantation, you were one of them.'
Could he take the man's words at face value? While he did hold pride in his heritage, he was well aware of the resentment his people faced, their deeds as subordinates of the Unspeakable King have yet to be truly forgiven, or even forgotten for that matter.
'Normally, we would just shunt you off into gene-labs to be implanted. However, the Legion has need of an officer corp, as ninety-five percent of the Officer Candidates had died due to complications during Implantation. You and other Officer potentials have been briefed as unlike the others you have a choice.'
DuCaine looked at the man as he spoke. 'You can either join the Tenth Legion and risk death via implantation or you can join the Eleventh Legion.'
DuCaine was puzzled,'Didn't you just say that most of the Eleventh Legion candidates died?' he asked. Most likely via Implantation was what he wanted to say.
The Scientist nods having noticed the unspoken question,'yes they did, I also said that we had created a more stringent procedure to ensure that we can identify who can survive, your name came up.' he says.
'The last thing to note, the oldest candidate in the Eleventh Legion was in his Thirties and most of the surviving candidates were in their twenties.'
The decision was made as soon as DuCaine heard the last sentence.
Caucasus Wastes, Final years of the Unification Wars.
It's been almost a decade since Amadeus was implanted and made a member of the Legiones Astartes.
DuCaine was surprised at how many Albians were members of the Eleventh, he even recognized a few from the city he grew up in. He had learned which legions his countrymen had went, some entered the Eighth Legion, others like a number of his friends ended up in the Tenth who became known as the Storm Walkers. The Eleventh was the biggest concentration of Albians followed by the Fourteenth who took the name Dusk Raiders. All three Legions took different aspects of Ironside Battle-craft.
They had done many things in the past decade, subduing rogue tribes in Jermani, besieging and taking Vhnori one of the last holdouts of the Late Narthan Dume's Empire. Hunting down the last of that thrice-damned Kalagann's Daemon cults.
Now, here they were the "Bloody Eleventh" another names that others had started calling them as while they did not fight in every single campaign, every battle they did take part in had the fiercest fighting.
Now here they were, preparing to deploy via Termite Drills to breach the shields of the Caucasus Wastes. He should not question it, but he could not help but wonder why they and the Eighteenth a relatively untested Legion were being deployed for something so important, DuCaine could tell that some of the Imperial Officers did not like the decision and knew they could not question it.
'Once more unto the breach.' Amadeus mutters as boarded the Termite Assault Drill.
The Assault Drills were launched, and started burrowing underground.
...Right into the depths of a hell that Amadeus didn't know existed.
AN:
Amadeus DuCaine is a canon character. He was the Legion Master of the Storm Walkers, more commonly known as the future Iron Hands Legion, DuCaine perished at Dropsite massacre after seeing his Primarch die. AU!DuCaine ended up being drafted into the Eleventh Legion because they needed recruits and the Emperor wanted them to be fully established, compared to the Tenth Legion who were in this AU replenishing losses. Admittedly the only reason I picked him even though he's a canon character is because early on I had read up on the Unification and decided that either Tupelov of Ursh or Ironside Clans of Old Albia would be the main pool of recruits for the Eleventh and DuCaine was Albian.
The Storm Warden Legion Colors are the Dusk Raider Color scheme Storm Grey with their right gauntlets painted crimson (the Dusk Raiders are the future Death Guard, they draw recruits from place, Albia) and got along well with the Dusk Raiders up until they became the Death Guard (One-sided hatred between Mortarion and Albrecht due to Albrecht being Psychic). After they meet their Primarch the crimson gauntlet is painted blue to honor their Primarch. (Albrechts Color Aesthetic is Dark Grey and Blue)
AU version of the Eleventh ends up participating in the Assault on the Tempest Galleries which was a originally a solo operation turned into a Joint operation for this AU. With two Astartes Legions the Eleventh and the Eighteenth (better known as the Salamanders) The assault is successful like in canon, but they suffer heavy losses in return.
VIII Legion = Future Night Lords and XIV Legion = Future Death Guard, The Members of the XI Legion tend to be nicer than those guys which ... isn't saying much.
On a final note, the next 'chapters' are going to be overview entries rather than narrative snippets one that's planned to be published soon is the overview of the battle mentioned in the last lines of this snippet.
02/06/2019 Edit: DuCane was a mispelling on my part it's actually DuCaine.
