Warhammer 40,000 & All associated trademarks are property of Games Workshops

I claim no ownership of anything except my own original characters.

I am making no money from this.

The Wretched

The clang of heavy and purposeful footsteps pierced through the haunting yet stagnant silence wherein the darkness itself seemed to lurk and encroach upon ones' senses, each footfall being joined by the reverberating cacophony of the power armour of an Astartes in motion in a chorus sibilant pneumatic hisses and rattling, jangling chatter of more esoteric and ancient war-gear.

Fabius Bile stalked the bowels of the Wretch, the current vessel under his ownership and command; as difficult as wrangling this particularly contentious and singular Machine Spirit had proven to be.

As he trudged forward the targeting arrays of his power armour, which bolstered sight that was already beyond even what could be considered normal amongst Astartes given the predisposition for perfectionism and need for sensation which set the Third Legion apart began to reach outwards and enmesh themselves with the systems of the Wretch to cajole the vessel into activating its' own internal lighting along this particular expanse of narrow gunmetal, imposing the will of the Spider upon the Machine Spirit through the interfacing equivalent to juvenile bullying so far beneath Bile's own concerns that he no longer consciously realised when it occurred. The pale, sickly and oscillating blue to yellow cast washed over Fabius to tint the pristine white of armour which denoted his once proudly held rank of an Apothecary amongst his legions' forces, the largely unblemished condition of the suit suggesting that it was as recently made as the body which wore it despite being of a model plucked from antiquity of the Great Crusade, a token of appreciation gifted to the great shaper of flesh in return for services rendered by the twisted ruler of a bleak and sulphurous Forge World which had freed itself of Martian shackles.

Despite the recently created body however Fabius was far from the epitome of physicality that even now the proclivities etched into his nature demanded of him, the Blight which all scions of the Third Legion suffered from already managing to make its' presence known in the form of a malignant, tumorous mass which tortuously burrowed its' way into his lungs and hungrily devoured from within as though it were a foul being in its' own right rather than the product of bitter desperation wrought against the Emperor's Children in their earliest days which turned the very implants which raised him above mere humanity against him. Through the vox-grill of his plumed helmet, the deep purple colouration of the plume a fondly worn affectation which once again reminded him of his past his breaths came in a moist, sludgy gurgle that the scions of Mortarion might recognise and that thought alone was enough to drive Fabius onward through the depths of the Wretch at a pace quickened by irritation; the bronze and skull-shaped head of Torment thrumming ominously as his weight shifted against it and the spider-limbs of the Chirurgeon shuddering with his every step in a series of arthritic spasms and lurches even as they administered a cocktail of unthinkable concoctions into Bile's bloodstream, a nip at his neck becoming the epicentre of a web of veins shifting from varicose sickness to a faintly glowing teal beneath his armour whilst his helmets' display informed him of the changes to his vitals. As his strides became more measured and deliberate again yet lost none of their urgency Fabius became aware of something which caught him off-guard and caused him to arch a single thin and whitened eyebrow, namely that the cloak he wore, its' surface a grisly patchwork of flayed faces had begun to moan with each shrivelled and dessicated mouth holding a single note until the garment produced a faintly heard chorus and performed a sombre and yet oddly uplifting, dramatic piece as it flapped and blew impressively in a wind which left no other physical traces.

This was not of Bile's doing and he offered only a derisive sneer in the direction of the one who could claim credit for this laughably mundane use of sorcery.

"The theatrics are uncalled for whelp" he cleared his throat with a phlegm-laced cough and added, more pleasantly "Though blood will out I suppose"

"My apologies Lord Father, it seemed only fitting your presence be announced with proper import" the voice that answered the admonishment was a poisonous thing, warm and musical, sickly sweet with a thousand hidden knives carried within each syllable. The speaker was an Astartes of Bile's own making who had, in a move so bold Fabius had chosen to allow it if only to sate his own curiosity as to where it might, lead given themselves a name.

He was Ambrose Achim, sorcerer whose gene-seed and genetic templates was a combination of various stock which Fabius had crafted in a dizzying maelstrom of abhorrent creativity who had taken to gifting himself various titles and epithets which Fabius would not entertain, decorating himself with them in the same magpie-like fashion he pilfered choice rarities from those he bested with something about his thieving and convoluted nature suggested to the Clone Lord that the scions of the Twentieth Legion amongst his Consortium had been brazen enough to add some of their own influence to his work. Indeed it seemed to Bile that the eccentricities of his own former Legion, posturing and all and the proclivities of the Alpha Legion in regards to secrecy would serve to create exactly the kind of overwrought display the Sorcerer who now followed at his right had in a presumptuous display of self-importance had taken to engaging in; specifically compelling the acrid smog vomited by his jump pack to linger around his form at all times, writhing and reshaping itself endlessly to allow only the vaguest hints of decorated armour whilst all the while crackling with arcane lightning which forked and lashed, creating shadows which further disguised and distorted Ambrose's true size and shape.

He was an insufferable thing and the fact he dared utter the word Father so openly where Melusine had been chided for it, as if he were in any way comparable to the first masterpiece of Bile's making was enough to send the arms of the Chirurgeon snapping and clacking whilst his gauntleted hand clutched at the head of Torment in festering annoyance, the thoughts, such as they were of his various lesser components conspiring against the Astartes behind them until Bile clamped down on them, feeling blood leak between his blackening teeth as he grit them.

"I decide what is fitting" Bile spat, noting that the haunting chorus continued on for a few more notes in an almost playful display of defiance which prompted the Spider to wonder just what it was about his works that left each of them inheriting his own lack of concern for the proper order of things until he shook his head slowly and forced his thoughts to return to more important matters. One such thought presented itself as the various tumours gnawing away at his being offered him a particularly vile lance of pain, namely that this body was deteriorating more quickly than expected; waxy and pallid brow furrowing beneath his helm Fabius noted that this fact presented several possibilities, or at least permutations upon a single truth

That the cloning process had been tampered with.

For several seconds the former Apothecary considered who might be responsible, Ambrose was both an obvious candidate and yet at the same time easily dismissed; he was of a generation of newly made warriors Fabius had made for the sole purpose of rising to the challenges of this even more hateful and vicious galaxy and, despite the admission grating on the pride Fabius could not erase from his nature, would not need to rely on such prolonged means to best him. Another option was of course any member of the Consortium, those sons of the Hydra counted amongst the lesser Apothecaries in his thrall had always had their own goals after all whilst it was equally possible that any number of other foes, even fellow traitors could have a hand in his degeneration. Most worrying of all was an unbidden thought that he himself had, by design or a faltering of his vaunted and sacrosanct mind and abilities allowed an imperfect copy to be made.

With that thought the Chirurgeon acted of its' own accord and Fabius felt a fresh stab at his nape before a brief, cooling numbness washed over him and purged such thoughts from his mind with a rapidity that should rightly have raised his suspicions further.

There was no time however, he and Ambrose had reached their destination.

"We are here Lord Father" the Sorcerer strode forwards and gestured broadly from within their veil of shifting smoke, the movement made more grandiose by the roiling mass of darkness; only for Fabius by reacting on instinct alone and lashing out with Torment in warning, the head of the weapon crackling with its' own demonic delight as it swept through the smoke and brushed against armour of a much more modern variety than Bile's own, marring its' surface as Bile himself stepped forward once again.

"I am aware of where we are whelp, did you believe I had merely taken a stroll or that I was retracing my steps in search of a lost scalpel?" before Ambrose could offer an answer to that Fabius regarded the sight before him, a reinforced plasteel bulkhead the height of several men and easily as wide which the corridor the two of them had prowled had widened out to accommodate, several other similar walkways converging upon it to give it the air of being a temple or focal point of some sort; a notion which despite his own personal distaste for the self-aware concepts which deigned to describe themselves as Gods which so many of his brothers had offered themselves up in service to Fabius was forced to begrudgingly accept as partially true. What lay beyond the bulkhead was the teleportarium of the Wretch and given both the nature of the Warp itself, especially since the forming of the Great Rift and the scarcity of serviceable equipment for extended periods of time the place had been dedicated by the assorted rabble of attendant hands and cultists who followed the one the called Pater Mutatis to various figments and confluences to ensure that faster than light travel remained at least somewhat safe and predictable.

"Well then, on with it" Fabius sighed, his armour once again reaching out and compelling the Machine Spirit of the Wretch to obey, causing the bulkhead to unseal itself with a scream of millennia old and poorly maintained mechanisms before Bile and his misbegotten, simpering and almost certainly conniving scion to stride onwards and into the teleportarium proper. The bulkhead sealed behind them, its' heavily reinforced nature an asset for one such as Bile should he ever need to forcibly eject an errant creation and both he and Ambrose strode out onto a gangway positioned high enough for the two of them to gaze down and take in the entirety of the small force gathered there in wait, Ambrose offering a snort unbecoming of the Third Legion in its' uncouth bluntness.

"You think yourselves superior to your kin do you whelp?" Fabius enquired with a warning edge, almost daring the ambitious and admittedly promising warrior beside him to challenge the Spider's pride in his own work; Ambrose was far from foolish enough to be so easily baited however and answered with carefully measured words, knowing that lying would just as easily see him cast into the void or crippled and traded with the denizens of Comorragh, or rendered down to reusable components whilst still living or indeed any of a number of horrific fates that the one known as the Man-flayer could invent for him.

"To some of them Lord Father, without question but then that is why they're here is not? Something to compare the more impressive test subjects against….Everything has its' use after all"

"Indeed whelp" Fabius murmured as he surveyed his gathered Astartes and began the mental process of appraising them, sifting each of the assembled strike force into various categories and noticing, in a detached way that they had, at some point during their journey through the warp made the decision to paint armour that had been supplied to them as bare ceramite, giving the force a unified and cohesive feel about it.

Fabius took that as a promising sign, even in the face of conflicting data.

Towards what was, in relation to Bile's own position the rear of the chamber a hulking and malformed shape loomed, a Defiler Demon Engine capable of shattering any defence arrayed against it and cleaving its' way through whatever souls had hunkered behind those defences in a wanton display of violence; its' monstrous piston-driven form currently at ease as the murderous spirit within it consoled itself with animal skulking and prowling that rattled anchoring chains whose-man sized links were engraved with subtly glowing wards of the most foul kind with each movement.

What was gathered around the Defiler could not rightly be called Astartes, they were a grotesque exercise in transhuman anatomy twisted in the most inhuman ways; their appearances an art from which even the most depraved of his comrades who now served the God of Excess would struggle to see the beauty in, though they would certainly try. A pair of lumbering beasts clad in Power Armour that split, twisted and fused with the mutated bodies they encased, Greater Possessed and around them a group of ten smaller yet equally obscene things sprouting additional limbs, wings and bladed appendages.

To Bile they were mistakes and thus worthy of nothing more than correction, though they might still prove useful even if it were only in the form of the faint amusement he derive from the creative ways in which they savaged their foes.

Standing off to the side of this, watching the shrieking rabble with almost palpable apprehension and distrust was a group of similarly massive forms though these were Astartes of a different calibre of alteration altogether; Obliterators, their minds spared the ravages of mutation and their forms largely stable despite the protean nature of what Bile had wrought upon these bold, willing candidates in an effort to replicate the firepower so favoured by Perturabo's dour sons whilst flanking the bristling trio were a pair of Dreadnought sarcophogi which stood even taller still though did not reach the height of waiting Defiler. The beings which inhabited these armoured frames had once been capable and reliable members of Bile's cohort, a trusted field commander and an apothecary who had studied forbidden knowledge under him until the pair had succumbed to the rages of an errant experiment gone awry.

The true Astartes stood toward the front of the group and it was here that Fabius could properly examine the colouration of the armour his latest creations now wore.

Primarily they were clad in a mottled, stained bone colour which might vaguely be said to resemble the shell of ancient Terra's coconut crabs had Bile ever heard of such creatures whilst the trim, weapons casing and helms of each individual were finished in a glossy jet black whilst faint, ominous glows permeated the gloom as the lenses of each helmet cast twin points of pink light. It was with a note of exasperation which drew a disgruntled sigh from the withering lungs of the Spider at the seeming inevitability of it all that he spotted the deep regal purple of his own former Legion covering the left arm and pauldrons of each suit of armour.

The armour itself was of the Mark X varietal favoured by the newest followers of the Corpse-Emperor, or at least a close approximation of it brought into existence by reverse engineering recovered specimens along with information Fabius had used his connections with the Alpha Legion to barter for, paying tolls that were painful to even consider to obtain the knowledge he required.

Amongst the specimens clad in this new armour there were already signs that the Dark Gods had taken the opportunity to claim prizes and followers in the few previous trial runs the groups had been deployed upon; the Havocs wore armour whose purple sections seemed more vibrant than those of their counterparts and bore weapons which had been cleaned to a degree that went beyond meticulous and bordered on obsessive, with casings being inlaid with gold which in more than one instance resembled the Mark of Slaanesh and finery and muzzles decorated to resemble fierce beasts all whilst parchments proclaiming kill counts hung in visible places. It was with an open distaste that the Havocs stared across the teleportarium, evidently to Fabius struggling to resist the urge to raise their weapons as they regarded the personal honour guard of Ambrose Achim, a group of Warp Talons whose devotion to the Blood God became all the more apparent with each act of butchery they undertook though for the time being the two factions were content to keep their rivalry contained to the level of healthy competition their master permitted and fostered.

Standing between these groups, almost as if consciously creating a buffer whilst at the same time centring themselves where they would attract the Spider's attention with ease were a group of twenty Astartes arranged into four tactical groups of five who stood statuesque and waiting, betraying nothing of any of the various components which made up their gene-seed save for perhaps a faint touch of the Twentieth Legion through the very act of being inscrutable.

At the head of this group was a figure which drew a hiss of deepest loathing from Ambrose.

"That one named itself as well" the Sorcerer noted coldly.

"Did they now" Fabius responded with feigned disinterest "And do tell, what is it my tool would have me call it, as though it were a decision for them to make?"

"They call themselves Excubitor Anat" Ambrose answered with the faintest hint of disapproving sniff, something once more unbecoming of the heritage he boasted. Fabius understood though, sibling rivalry, such as it was had been a bane of the Third Legion where marital pride had seen one proud brother cut down another on a regular basis with Fulgrim's open approval and it was clear that of the two of them, arcane magic or not Excubitor Anat would be the one to do the cutting should he and Ambrose ever directly confront one another. The Astartes stood head and shoulders above his brethren and bore a Bolt Pistol larger than the average Bolter, a truly remarkable weapon loaded with rounds of Bile's own making whilst in the other hand a power weapon whose blade might one have been the blade of some vanquished and alien war construct but was now an ornate, yet deadly thing larger than a man which the Astartes wielded deftly with one hand as though it were little more than a quill and across his back was a shield, rarely worn it was a simple trophy taken as spoils of war after he had slain the leader of a small World Eater's war-band in his initial trial by fire. Moreover, beyond his size and weaponry this Astartes was one whom other would follow, an inspiring figure amongst the ranks of Bile's creations who achieved feats beyond what the shrouded sorcerer glaring down at him could boast even with the aid of the warp spawn.

And judging by the look upon Anat's face as he returned the glare, he understood his superiority and revelled in it.

Excubitor was alone in that he wore no helmet, instead allowing long hair, midnight black and so smooth it almost shimmered in the faint gloom to cascade down and frame a sharp and angular face whose deathly pallor went far beyond the typical complexion of the Third Legion and as Fabius once again took note of pure, black within black eyes he noted that Excubitor was in fact a name once found on Nostramo; which considering the brutal conduct of his Master of Executions only proved to the Spider once again that no matter how altered and diluted in might be, blood would always out.

The assembled force, those new Astartes at it's forefront especially were his answer to the Primaris.

Cawl's inventions had been a thorn, or more accurately a poison coated dagger in the side of the traitor legions since their dramatic entrance onto the galactic stage however it was not for the reason of closing this gulf that Bile had been so eager to work with the flesh of the Primaris; rather it had been his own curiosity, kindled by a deep sense of something approaching kinship with the Martian whose vision clearly expanded far beyond what the Golden Throne would permit.

"I wonder" Bile muttered to himself as he once again considered not only the nature of the Primaris and how they had been kept so well hidden for so long, but also just how it was that the Alpha Legion spies seemed to so easily supply him with what he needed in terms of data and samples, as though it had been simply left unattended to be taken or perhaps even willingly parted with.

That thought prompted another nip at his neck from the Chirurgeon, this time an unmistakable warning which in turn caused Bile to consider things which sent a chill down his spine and sent his mind back to the task at hand. Taking a single lurching step towards the edge of the gantry on which he stood he raised his arms, holding them wide and gesturing like a maestro with Torment in a display which both brought the Teleportarium to life in a wave of writhing, twisting runes and brought the force below him to action as they prepared to heed and act upon the orders of their maker.

Fabius smiled beneath his helmet, allowing himself to indulge in the small display of flamboyance

"Come my Wretched Children, we have work to do!"


Author's Notes:

So this is my First time writing Warhammer 40k fiction, I made it a new years' resolution to branch out and try at least one new franchise to write for.

I've been into the hobby since I was a kid in third edition and the only reason I haven't written for it before is because the lore and writing has a very distinct and specific style, which whilst being one which I routinely cite as one the major inspirations of my own writing style I wasn't sure if I could replicate in a way that felt right.

Honestly this piece exists to give some lore and character to my home-brew Creations of Bile list which I haven't gotten around to writing yet.

The leaks from the new Chaos Codex which is coming are something of a double edged sword here, in that they gave me the impetus to finally get to work and start on writing this but also kinda killed off my inspiration to take the story any further; I initially had three more scenes planned out wherein the Wretched would take on Primaris, culminating in a showdown between my Master of Executions Excubitor and a Captain and it would be revealed that the Fabius we see here is actually a clone when the 'Real' Fabius arrives after the battle but I just don't have the motivation when I know I'm gonna have to completely remake this list anyway.

I don't even want to my usual post chapter summaries because this is so short and so self explanatory that it's honestly redundant; it's basically a glorified army list and some vague ties into something I posted on Tumblr about how I would move the narrative onwards and how Bile and Cawl with the Alpha Legion acting as a go between would be the cornerstone of it.

As always thank you to everyone that reads this, with a special thanks to those of you that follow, favourite and review.