The Return of Rogal Dorn
Part 1: The Spider's Web
During the Great Scouring, the Primarch Vulkan had searched for the Apothecary of the Emperor's Children Fabius Bile. The Spider. The hunt ended with Bile's damaged ship escaping into the Warp. After that day, Vulkan had gone into self-imposed exile, the hunt left unresolved.
For 10,000 years, on the planet Urum, Bile had worked to perfect the work of the Emperor of Mankind, no matter what abominations he created. At least they were abominations in the eyes of those that weren't Fabius. To him, they were the most beautiful things in the Galaxy. The Space Marines of the Great Crusade had been half finished. They had not reached their full potential. Only he could bring true perfection to the Galaxy.
"I don't want to die," he had told the Imperial Fist Cassander. He didn't want to die a half-finished being. He wanted to live on, having surpassed the work of the Emperor of Mankind. There were fools that believed he went too far, but they were wrong. He hadn't gone far enough in his experiments! He had cloned his Primarch, Fulgrim, and still he hadn't gone far enough! He needed the pure gene-seed of Roboute Guilliman and his recently returned brothers. He needed them all. And he would be greater than even the Emperor of Mankind.
It would not be today.
Urum was under attack by the Imperium lead by the Archmagos Dominus Belisarius Cawl and supported by the forces of the Imperial Fists' First and Third Companies. To break the walls Bile had put up around himself, he had enlisted the best. The Fists were good at breaking down walls placed in front of them as much as they were at building them.
On board his flagship, the Zar-Quaesitor, Cawl looked upon the Crone World of Urum. For millennia, he had heard about the fleshsmith of the Emperor's Children and his works. They had never met before this day, but Cawl considered him his rival. That was why he had made sure that a majority of the forces brought to Urum were Primaris Marines. "You strove for perfection, Primogenitor. You strove for 10,000 years. I accomplished it long before you did. I beat you. And I will show you that." He turned to his companions. First Captain of the Imperial Fists Darnath Lysander, Captain of the 3rd Company Tor Garadon, his adjutant Qvo-87, and his first creation Alpha Primus.
The Fists had joined due to a promise made by Vulkan. That if Fabius Bile was captured, then the Primarch of the Imperial Fists would soon be brought back. The Fists had put everything into this. They would break the Spider if it meant getting their Primarch back. They would break worlds if it meant the return of the Praetorian of Terra.
"I think it is going well. Don't you?" Cawl asked.
"We are almost through, Archmagos," Lysander stated. "We will be able to enter the fortress as soon as we break down the force shields around Cawl's fortress."
"Yes, about that," Cawl said. "You must hold back from the main laboratory. I will be sending Alpha Primus to extract Cawl himself. I do not doubt your qualifications for Siegecraft, but I will need a more... delicate hand."
Tor Garadon looked at the immense Alpha Primus, a Space Marine that was more or less a conglomeration of implants and psyker abilities that rivaled even that of a Librarian. He did not consider the Primaris Prototype to be a delicate hand.
"Do not lie to us, Cawl. What is your real reason?"
Cawl smiled under his face mask. "To borrow a phrase from Ancient Terra: Bragging rights." He turned to the planet. "That monster profaned the work of the Emperor of Mankind. He spent centuries working backwards to satisfy his desires for perfection and it sickens me. I can feel emotions, you know. And I want him to see that I beat him to perfection millennia ago. I will break his spirit, Captains. And then I will make him bring Rogal Dorn back from the Grave along with me."
The Captains of the Imperial Fists looked at each other. Belisarius Cawl was a borderline heretic in the eyes of the Mechanicum. He created instead of preserving. He skirted the line every second he breathed. And yet, he delivered results. He had helped bring the Chapters of many Space Marines back from the brink or from the dead. Many Sons of Dorn, like the Astral Knights or the Soul Drinkers, had been restored. Their traditions may have had to be relearned, but they were a new beginning. As much as they distrusted him, they owed Cawl. They nodded in assent.
"We will stick to the outer chambers of the fortress. The Laboratory is yours."
Cawl bowed in gratitude. "I thank you, Captains." He turned to Alpha Primus. "It is time."
Fabius looked upon the Enhanced Warriors that stood vigil at all points of his laboratory. They were his most beloved creations. Enhanced Space Marines he had captured over the centuries, modified to become more than their limited forms had managed before. Enhanced to the point where they were hulking brutes with sharpened teeth and distended and engorged limbs, some that ended with claws. They were his New Men. His beloved sons. Among their ranks were Gland-Hounds, meant to search and obtain the gene-seed of Astartes. He was ready.
He would not fall here. Even if the Fists got through, they would not have him. This body may die, but he had contingencies. He had clones prepared for the inevitable. Fabius was a genius. He was not going to die to the imbeciles of the Fists. He perked up his enhanced nose as something appeared in the air. The smell of...Ozone.
"PREPARE YOURSELVES, MY CHILDREN," Fabius cried out. "THEY ARE COMING!"
A loud BOOM erupted in the middle of the room as the Enhanced Warriors and the Gland-Hounds turned to see... a lone Astartes in the middle of the room. He wore gray armor that resembled that of the Primaris Marines. There was just one problem: He was bigger than many Primaris Marines Fabius had seen before. He seemed unfinished. Like work had begun on him and had yet to be completed. "Interesting," Fabius thought to himself. "I will have to make sure the body is preserved for further study."
The Astartes turned his head up to look at Fabius on the platform above. "I am Alpha Primus. I am in the service of the Archmagos Dominus Belisarius Cawl. I have come here to capture you and bring you back into Real Space. Please do not resist. My body aches particularly today and I would prefer not to exert myself."
Fabius' lipless mouth pulled back further to reveal a grinning mouth of long white teeth. His Chirurgeon clicked and whirred as it began to pump ichor into his body, boosting his physical strength further. "You serve the Heretek of the Adeptus Mechanicus? You are quite interesting to me, Alpha Primus. Tell me... what are you?"
"A prototype," Alpha said simply. "I was created by Cawl himself as the basis for the Primaris Marines. Now, please, come quietly. I have my orders."
Fabius ignored that request and sighed. "Ah, so Cawl is here now? I have longed wish to meet that upstart. I want to thank him for the creation of the Primaris Marines." He gestured to a few of the tanks around his laboratory. They were filled with the mutated and mutilated remains of many capture Primaris Marines. Some held gene-seeds that had been fused together. "They have done wonders for my research and he has delivered me a wonderful new test subject in you. This is turning out to be a very productive day."
"Please. Surrender. I am being merciful when I make this offer."
Bile laughed. "Kill him. Preserve the body though. It would be a shame to waste such a beautiful test subject."
Alpha sighed as the abominations of Bile closed in on him. "I was asked to give you a chance. To not make the first move. My master believes in being fair. At times. But he sent me so I can guess this isn't one of those times."
The Enhanced Warriors leaped towards him and as they did, time seemed to stop. What happened next happened under thirty seconds, yet it felt like an hour. A wave of violet psychic energy erupted from where Alpha Primus stood, flinging the Enhanced Warriors back, some off the platform where they stood and down to the ground level of Fabius' lab. He turned to one that had managed to right itself and held out a hand. That same violet energy crackled around his palm and he clenched his fist. The monster's head compressed and exploded outwards in a burst of gore. Two Gland-Hounds rushed him and Alpha turned to gun them down with his bolter. Their bodies burst apart as the mass reactives made contact.
As the Enhanced Warriors rallied, this time in greater force, Alpha Primus stood his ground, alternating between psychic attacks and his bolter. He was like a statue of a God of War, unrelenting and ruthless as he blasted his enemies or sent them flying to their deaths. It was a massacre that Fabius had the pleasure of witnessing firsthand. True, he was watching many of his hard won creations die to a thing made by an upstart like Cawl, but he had to give it to the Archmagos. He knew how to make a truly fearsome weapon. And if this Astartes was in pain as he said, then that made his feats of power all the more impressive.
As the battle wound down, Fabius began to applaud. "You are truly magnificent, Alpha Primus." He jumped down to the platform and drew himself up to his full height to attempt to look the Astartes in the face. "You are a credit to your master and I give you my respect. It is a shame that this must end for you." He raised his Xyclos Needler, preparing to deliver a shot that would incapacitate the Warrior. "I will have some difficulty getting you out of here with me as I depart, but I will cross that bridge when I come to it. I may have to get a new body ready. This one is running down on me."
Alpha Primus shook his head. "I am not going with you. You are coming with me. As you are now. And please don't shoot that. The last thing I need is more pain." It amused Fabius how this warrior spoke with a completely level tone. There was no anger in those words. Just stating the basic fact of his mission.
"Really? And how do you suppose that?"
"Because my master is right outside your door." Fabius turned to the main entrance of his fortress' lab just in time to see it explode outwards. A squad of Primaris Imperial Fists surged forward and trained their bolters on Fabius. From behind them came the Archmagos himself. Belisarius Cawl.
Fabius had met many tech-priests of the Mechanicum in his long lived life. Cawl was, simply put, the most of all of them. While some tech-priests kept some of their flesh as a reminder of where they came from, it seemed like Fabius had all but given himself over to the Omnissiah entirely. He wasn't sure if there was any other bits of flesh left on him besides his face. He really had wanted to meet Cawl. They were opposites in many ways. Cawl may have been an expert on the flesh, but he was a servant of the Omnissiah first and foremost. He was devoted to the craft of machines while Fabius was a crafter of flesh. He was excited and angry to see Cawl profane his sanctuary.
When Cawl spoke, it was not what Fabius had expected. He had thought to hear a monotone voice devoid of any passion or emotion. It was part of what made him hate the priests of the Mechanicum. But when Cawl spoke, it was almost... human.
"I am Belisarius Cawl, but obviously you know that. It is a pleasure to meet you, Fabius Bile." It was a very casual tone. It had the underlying buzz of the machine, but it was genial and polite in how it was delivered. "I have wanted this meeting for quite some time. I regret it had to be under these circumstances."
Fabius laughed. "No. No, you don't. That's why you sent him." He turned to Alpha Primus. "It would have been easy to send your Primaris Marines. But you sent him because you wanted to assert your superiority to me. For what it is worth, he is beautiful. And I have only seen what he can do. I would love to see his face." He turned back to Belisarius. "May I? Please?"
Cawl shook his head. "No, we have much to do and I have a schedule to keep. So please, come with me. I do not want to kill you and have to deal with finding one of your many clones around here." Cawl looked around the Laboratory, his augmented eyes resting on the tanks of fused gene-seeds. He turned back to Alpha Primus. "Alpha, please destroy those." Alpha Primus turned his bolter on them and prepared to fire.
"NO!" Fabius put himself between the tanks and the Primaris Prototype. "YOU CAN'T DESTROY MY WORK! Not when I am so close to achieving my life's dreams!"
Cawl glared. "That is my life's work. You defiled it with your diseased touch. Please step aside and let me put it out of the misery you inflicted upon it."
Fabius glared at him. "What kind of scientist are you?! I thought you were a visionary! We were meant to break the boundaries set before us!"
Cawl nodded. "I am. And we were. To a point. You may have cheated life many times over, but I have lived through it for 10,000 years. And while I respect you, it can only go so far. In truth, you disgust me to my core. If you do not surrender, I will annihilate this planet and everything on it. You will have nothing left. Do not attempt to see if I am bluffing. I never bluff when it comes to my works."
At that moment, Fabius felt nothing but loathing for Belisarius Cawl. Loathing and respect. He smiled his rictus grin. "Well played, Cawl. Well played. I surrender."
Cawl nodded in thanks. "Very good." A dart shot out from one of Cawl's many limbs and embedded itself in Bile's neck. "I am aware you are immune to many poisons and toxins. That is why this is not aimed at you, but your Chirurgeon. This is what happens when you rely too heavily on one particular machine."
As the Chirurgeon began to shut down, Bile felt himself get weaker and weaker. Cawl motioned to an Imperial Fist Apothecary. "Sustain him please. We need him alive if your Primarch is to live again."
The Imperial Fists turned to him in shock. "What did you just say, Archmagos," the Primaris Sergeant asked.
"My boy, we are about to embark on an undertaking that not even I have been able to achieve. We are about to clone a Primarch and according to a mutual acquaintance of mine and Bile's, this creature is the only one in the Galaxy to successfully clone a Primarch. He turned to the Fists as the Apothecary stabilized Bile and Alpha Primus picked up the Spider. "Rejoice, my boys. You and your older brothers will soon be meeting your father."
Author's Note: It is time. It is time for the story of how Rogal Dorn came back to life. I'm gonna be frank: This is something I have wanted to see for a loooooong time: Fabius Bile meeting Belisarius Cawl. In my opinion, the fact that Games Workshop hasn't written a novel where they meet or thought of a Campaign for a battle between their forces is silly. They are both so similar and dissimilar. They are beings of ego and knowledge, but both have different methods of achieving their goals. Fabius wishes for ultimate genetic perfection while Cawl wishes to help the Imperium even if it means dabbling with forces that may end up destroying him, like the technology of the Necrons. And that mutual acquaintance mentioned was indeed Trazyn the Infinite. I'd like to think this explains how Cawl found Bile.
As for the Imperial Fists themselves? I'm not as big a fan as many others are, the Salamanders and White Scars are my personal favorites, but I have a large amount of respect for them. While I am very mixed on the Dark Angels, the Fists are the kind of straight forward warriors and protectors I can get behind. I know people have mixed feelings on some stories featuring them, like the books by Ben Counter or Fist of the Imperium by Andy Clark, but I like them myself. Rogal Dorn himself is probably my least favorite Primarch, but that doesn't mean I dislike him. He's pretty straight forward and unflinching in his works which made him come off as kind of bland to me at first. But that doesn't mean I dislike him. I'm actually in the middle of the Horus Heresy books and preparing to read/listen to the stories featuring Dorn. Hell, I kinda hope the short stories featuring the Fists by John French get collected in a book since they haven't had many books until the Siege of Terra and Praetorian of Dorn.
This is something I have wanted to try out for a while so I hope it goes well and everyone enjoys it. Raise your fists, Sons of Dorn, build up your walls, and hunker down. It is time.