A/N – Finally the next chapter is here, would have been sooner, but my Muse decided to go on a holidays and then I got stuck on one scene. More training, more plotting and much more slaughter and battles.

o-0-o

Lord Commander Dante was ancient, so ancient that even the most ancient members of Astartes chapters couldn't recall a time when someone else held the post. He was a fearsome warrior and an excellent commander, one that was a paragon of all of the virtues of their Primarch, Sanguinius. He walked along the battlements of the fortress-monastery of his chapter and he could see work being done all around the complex. Serfs of the chapter and even battle-brothers dug out trenches, prepared traps, erected walls and ensured that firing lanes were clean of any cover. Tyrannid swarm was coming and it would arrive in mere weeks, yet the Angels weren't alone. All of their Successor Chapters answered the call for help and their forces were coming, and much to Dante's surprise even the Space Wolves decided to come, pledging ten of their Great Companies and all of the space assets they could spare.

He wasn't sure how the swarms were going to be stopped, but he knew it was going to happen no matter the cost, Baal was not allowed to fall and the chapter was not allowed to go extinct. He knew that everything was stacked against his chapter, but he that there was always hope and that victory was clawed out of the worse odds.

o-0-o

Harry looked at the axe that was laid in front of him and he had troubles believing that such a piece of beauty could have been crafted, it was a work of art, yet deadly. It's handle slightly too long for usage with a normal power armor, but just right to be used with the plate used by the Terminators. Even if slightly too large it was still beautiful, forged out of black metal, inlaid with golden runes and sigils designed to help him channel the power of the Warp and protect him from some of the eldritch attacks of the creatures of it. Then his gaze was drawn to the blades of the weapon that could split a skull of a Bloodletter in one strike and send the beast straight into the Warp. He smiled as he ran his fingers over the surface of the blades and over snarling heads of wolves that connected blades to the handle and hid the most important and precious parts of circuitry that made this weapon so deadly.

"Is it sufficient?" One of the artificers asked.

"It is," Harry said as he grasped the handle with both of his hands and lifted the weapon. "It is exactly what I wanted. The handle is a bit too long for my tastes, but I should get used to it."

"Indeed," Voldus said and Harry looked at his mentor. "Since you have your weapon back we will resume your training with it and we will add psychic powers into the mix."

Harry smiled and followed Voldus onto one of the arenas, there the Grand Master stopped in the middle of it and looked at Harry. "Nemesis weapons aren't normal power weapons as they can be reinforced by channeling our own psychic might into it and thus making it better. Were you taught how to channel your might into something?"

"I was," Harry nodded as he focused on the handle of his axe and his eyes flashed cerulean blue. "It was the first lesson given to me by my master."

Voldus nodded and watched keenly as the weapon in Harry's hands lit with an ethereal light of the Immaterium, runes glowing and pulsing with power and the blade getting covered in a field of power. "Very good," he said and grasped his halberd with both hands. "Now let's see how good you are."

Harry smiled at the challenge and hurled himself at the Grey Knight, the axe raised above his head and then he lowered it sharply. It didn't reach the target and instead was stopped on the shaft wielded by Voldus. "Not bad," he muttered and sent a vicious kick towards Harry. "But getting locked in a duel is a thing that can kill you."

Harry winced as he felt the boot slam against his armor, emergency lights blinking in the periphery of his vision, reporting various damage and values high above acceptable thresholds. He then wrestled the axe free and jumped back with his eyes cold and focused on his opponent. He smiled, baring his fangs and then charged back in, excitement and adrenaline flowing through his body as he prepared for a long duel that would let him test his skills.

o-0-o

Torin smiled as he saw the familiar spire of the House of Belisarius, past four weeks of Warp travel and stopping the pirates were tiring and it was good to be back in the lair. Also some of the things he had learned during those weeks needed to be confronted with data they acquired out of their guest that after few pleasant sessions became much more talkative and willing to share his secrets.

The Thunderhawk landed on one of the pads extending from the spire and Torin briskly walked down the ramp and towards Valkoth who came to greet the Wolfblades that returned from the mission. "Did you find anything important?" Older Wolfblade asked.

"Aye, I did," Torin said and looked around. "But not here, too many damn ears around and it might be a juicy piece of data."

Valkoth nodded and together they walked into the building, servants and members of household moving out of their path. "Good that you didn't bring any injured or killed brothers with you," he said and paused. "We might need as many as we can find."

"What is it?"

"It seems that we weren't good enough in exterminating the zealots lurking in the darkness," Valkoth spat. "Few smaller groups merged and now we face a united force that can be a problem and if that was not enough we have plenty of preachers calling to burn Navigators."

Torin hummed for a moment and played with his moustache before looking at his superior. "Sounds like someone increased the stakes," he finally said. "Preachers smell a lot like the Ecclesiarchy or some splinter inside of it wanting fame and importance. Zealots are our old friends and we don't need to look for one that pays them."

"As I thought," Valkoth grimly said and nodded to a pair of household guards that guarded the door they stepped through. "Our friend was mentioning over and over again the Grandmaster or whoever that is and our guest from Titan also mentioned that individual. What I like even less is that we play to his tune and only react."

"We don't have too many other choices," Torin said and Valkoth looked at him. "To get to him we need to breach security of the Inquisitorial Fortress on this world and without our chapter and few more I wouldn't dare to do it. Ones that fund or order those preachers, Palace of the Ecclesiarchy and that is also nigh on impossible."

Valkoth growled, his fangs flashing. "I hate reacting to the moves of my enemy," he said and gave Torin a look. "Do you have any ideas how to force him to play by our rules? After all you're the one that knows the scheming ways of the nobility and how to weave through their plots and schemes."

"Do what you know how to do best," Torin said and shrugged. "We cannot target him, but we can gut out his tools and without tools he can do nothing."

Valkoth smiled like a wolf and tapped his vox. "Gunnar, assemble your squad and meet me in the briefing room in ten minutes."

Torin nodded and looked around, searching for any potential places where spies could be. "What I found points in the direction of a more widespread scheme than we originally estimated, the full extend of it you will have in a written report, a copy of which I think should be sent to Fenris, but it is bad."

"The chapter won't help us," Valkoth said. "Ten Great Companies are racing to Baal and it is unknown when they will be back."

"Baal? Homeworld of the Blood Angels?"

"Aye, Lord Commander Dante called for help in stopping a Tyranid incursion from laying waste to his world and our Great Wolf decided to provide our support in stopping the threat."

o-0-o

Logan Grimnar stood on board of his personal Thunderhawk as the craft sliced through the thin atmosphere of Baal Secundus and approached the fortress-monastery of the Blood Angels chapter. Behind him stood his personal retinue, twelve Wolf Guard in Terminator armors and more in the Thunderhawks following this craft. The moment the craft landed and lowered its ramp he walked out and almost immediately noticed Lord Commander awaiting him. However that was not the sight that caught most of his attention, as that was done by rows upon rows of Thunderhawks in colors of over a dozen chapters standing in the courtyard with even more gunships landing or preparing to land.

"Lord Commander," Logan said with a slight tilt of the head.

"Great Wolf," Dante said. "Thank you for your arrival and the support of your chapter. We need every Marine we can find and your host greatly increases our chances of surviving the battle. If you follow me I will take you for the war council meeting with which we waited for your arrival."

"Indeed," Logan said and followed Dante. "And thank you for waiting for me."

Dante nodded and the two of them quickly entered one of the massive chambers of the fortress-monastery and as Logan looked around he could see over twelve Chapter Master and scores of Captains and Sergeants flanking their superiors, there were also some members of Sanguinary Guard, but not as many as other officers. They were talking with each other, however when he entered the room all of them fell silent and showed him respect he deserved.

"I will disperse with formalities as we lack the time for them," Dante said and everybody nodded. "The Hive will be here in a week of time and nobody else will arrive before it gets here."

"I wouldn't be so sure," Logan quietly said. "My Rune Priests saw omens that suggest arrival of allies in the moment of need."

"But we cannot assume that they will come," Dante smoothly said. "We need to assume that we are here on our own and that nothing will come to our aid. Great Wolf, since you brought with yourself the biggest contingent of warriors I think it will be honorable to give you defense of the first line."

"It would be an even greater honor if we could fight alongside our cousins," the Great Wolf said. "Two First Founding chapters fighting together as they did since the dawn of ages and hopefully will do until the end of times."

"Of course," Dante nodded and summoned one of his Captains. "1st,3rd, 4th and 6th are to be deployed to the outer walls and will be under command of Great Wolf."

The Captain nodded and with a bow walked away to pass on orders from their Chapter Master and to get those companies mobilized. Next hours and days were a frantic planning session as their forces entrenched themselves in and around the fortress-monastery preparing it for an assault to come.

o-0-o

Harry looked at his armor with some barely hidden disgust, instead of the blue-gray he came to love now it was painted in the same silver color that the Grey Knights used. He understood the reasons for the change of color as unity was an important factor, but he still resented the change, the only signs of him being a member of the Space Wolves was a badge of his Great Company on the pauldron of his armor and his helmet with the faceplate shaped to resemble a snarling head of a wolf. Those two were the only things that were a link to his true allegiance, link that he needed badly as the Citadel of Titan was a strange place where he felt as if he was in a cage. In the Fang discipline wasn't that strongly enforced and he could do whatever he wanted as long as it wasn't an open heresy, here he was constantly watched and the life was much more organized. If that was not bad enough a good portion of the Grey Knights looked at him with barely hidden distrust and in some cases even hatred, while they didn't cause open confrontations his superhuman senses could feel their distrust and that some thought he shouldn't be even allowed to know about their existence.

He focused on his psychic might and watched as a flame he tried to control burst out of control and formed a thirty meters tall pillar of roaring inferno that started to melt the stone of the floor.

"Focus," Voldus said, his voice patient and calm. "You once again lost focus and power slipped out of your grip."

"I know," Harry said with a scowl. "I know that yet your fucking brothers don't make it an easy task." As he said those words he realized that he said too much and the next thing he felt was his back slamming into a wall.

"I am a very patient man, but even I have some limits and lines that cannot be crossed," Voldus said as he approached Harry, pressure on Harry's body increasing with each step of the older psyker. "And one of them is showing respect to your superiors, tho considering that you are a Space Wolf I should have seen it coming. Even if you are among the Wolves one of the Wolf Guard, here you are one of the battle-brothers and honors earned elsewhere don't matter and you won't insult my brothers in any way or form."

Harry's eyes lit with fury at those words and he started to wrestle with the bindings holding him. "Why should I show them any respect if they don't show me any," he snarled and his eyes glowed cerulean blue before he broke the bindings pinning him to the wall and looked at the Grand Master.

Voldus narrowed his eyes and tried to once again pin Harry to the wall and the only thing he achieved was a furious snarl leaving Harry's mouth. "This is your last warning and I will be forced to put you down and send your body to Fenris," Voldus said as he looked at Harry. "Maybe your Wolf Lord tolerates disobedience, but I don't."

"He doesn't," Harry said and reached for his axe. "But he isn't also a stuck up idiot that doesn't see problems and is able to think from time to time, certainly more often than you."

Voldus' eyes flared in rage and he summoned his psychic might, ready to attack Harry.

"That will be enough," someone said as he entered the arena. "Aspirants have more common sense than you two combined can use. Aldrik, stop that attack, Harald, lower the weapon."

They did it reluctantly, but nodded when they saw that the person walking towards them was Aidan Perdron and his eyes blazed with a fiery rage that made them stop. "Yes, Harald is here a normal battle-brother and nobody else, but even he deserves some respect that comes because of the fact," Perdron said and spat. "A thing that seems to be eluding minds of our idiotic brothers and even with all of the will he shows to study, he sooner will be driven mad than learn something with the current atmosphere. Harald, control outbursts of your temper and don't make yourself more enemies than necessary."

Harry bowed his head in shame at his outburst. "I will," he said and focused on the power he tried to master. This time the flame appeared in his hand and remained under his complete control. "Is it what I was supposed to achieve?"

"Indeed," Voldus said. "Now try hurling it at something."

Harry nodded and did as he was told hurling the ball he grasped with his hand into one of the walls, it splattered on the wall and didn't stop burning. It even tried to burn the wall, but stopped and was extinguished when the wards flickered alive and canceled the energy of the Immaterium. "It sticks to the walls?" He asked in some disbelief.

"To every surface and doesn't die out on its own," Voldus said. "Here it isn't that visible as the wards are designed to stop powers upon their contact with them, but in a situation where you face cultists and need to purge them it is one of the best and most powerful tools in your arsenal."

"I see," Harry said and then looked at his axe. "Could I cast it onto the blades of my weapon?"

"Possibly," Grand Master Perdron said. "Nobody did it save the Emperor, but it should be possible."

Harry smirked at this obvious challenge and looked at the blade, thinking how to do the deed and ensure that he wouldn't get burned by the flames as he had a feeling that even if he was the master of the ones he called they were fickle and could as easily burn him as they could his enemies.

"I know what you are thinking about doing it now you won't have a chance," Voldus said and Harry looked at him. "A daemonic incursion was reported and you will accompany me and my brotherhood on a mission to eradicate it and cleanse the world from corruption."

"Do you think that I'm ready to face daemons?" Harry asked as he checked his gear and looked at his axe.

"We will see during combat," Voldus said and added. "Past months of your training showed that you have soul and body ready to face those things. My brothers might disagree, but my judgment is final on this matter and you will accompany me and my brotherhood. Be in the hangar in fifteen standard minutes, carry with yourself just the gear you need, nothing else."

Harry nodded and hurried to his quarters to get what he would need for the mission and to calm his mind with a brief bout of meditation.

o-0-o

Logan Grimnar stood on the battlements of the fortress-monastery of the Blood Angels and looked at the sky with hundreds, if not thousands of spores hurling themselves towards the ground. While the fortress was safe from their assault due to a void shield protecting it, it didn't envelop the whole planet and xenos were able to land outside. Massive weapon batteries scattered around the complex, Long Fangs and Devastators reaped a terrible tally of spores, one that would stop any normal attack, but that was not enough. In place of one spore destroyed or damaged three more were there to take its place and deliver their deadly content to the surface. He saw a lascanon incinerate a spore and he smiled grimly as the organic matter of the craft was consumed by the flames. This war was one of the attrition and they needed to rob their enemies of the biomass to win and force the fleet to retreat. Naval assets of all of the chapters gathered on the planet didn't try to stop the Tyranids from making a planet fall as they would get overwhelmed, instead they let the enemy approach the positions from which now rained drop pods and attacked exposed sides and backs of the hive. Each attack destroyed maybe a handful or two handful of ships, but even such a meager amount meant that less biomass was available to the hive and a lesser amount of warriors could be born out of it.

"Sire, first wave amassed outside of the shield," one of the Wolf Scouts reported. "We don't see any Tyrants or other bigger creatures."

Logan nodded and looked towards the teeming mass that was swarming outside of the fortress, ready to pour in if given a chance. His superhuman eyes could discern individual creatures in that sea of bodies, chitin, claws and fangs. He gave it several long looks before looking at the battlements which were filled with members of two Great Companies and four Blood Angels Companies under personal leadership of their Lord Commander. Devastators, elite Wolf Guard and 1st Company were scattered between normal battle-brothers, all of them were holding heavy weapons to support the line and stop the tide. He knew that his Wolves despised the tactic he and fellow Grand Masters came up with, but he also knew that they would follow him into the battle.

"Weaken the shield," he ordered and watched as a wave of xenos poured through the shield. His eyes watched it carefully, estimating the moment when enough of them was let in. He heard fire erupt along the battlements as assault cannons, lascanons, heavy bolters, plasma canons, multi-meltas, missile launchers and grav canons were fired at the horde. The enemy was packed so tightly that a strike that missed its intended target killed something else. As the enemy neared the battlements bolters joined the fight and first lines of the horde were torn to shreds. "Reinforce the shield to full strength," he ordered as the enemy was maybe fifty meters from the first line.

The shield flared as more power was poured into it and trapped inside the splinter that was allowed to pass through it. The splinter numbered in dozens of thousands of alive xenos and even more that were dead or dying, but it was only a tiny fraction of the horde amassed in the orbit and pouring onto the planet. He cut down with his storm bolter one of the weird synapse creatures that passed down the orders to lesser xenos and smiled when parts of the horde became more feral and less intelligent. "Flamers, conserve ammunition and do not fire," he said activating his vox. "We will need you later." He grasped his Axe of Morkai with both hands and looked at the Lord Commander. "Will you join me?"

Dante only nodded and the two of them flanked by their bodyguards jumped down from the battlements, Logan landed on top of a hormagaunt and he felt the spine of the creature bend and break under his bulk. However before he could think about it xenos were upon him and his axe flashed in the dim light of the day and cut through the closest gaunts, drawing their blood and splitting their bodies into pieces as blades crackled with power and no material was a defense against them.

Logan let out a feral cry as he charged into the thickest and most fierce fighting, his Kingsguard to his sides and ensuring that no traitorous attacks could be made against their liege lord. Their thunder hammers and storm shields pushing aside the gaunts and slaughtering them in hundreds as the Great Wolf carved his own path of blood and destruction, he sliced a gaunt in two and looked to the side where the Lord Commander and his elite Sanguinary Guard skillfully fought against the tide of flesh and chitin, their strikes weren't as ferocious or powerful as ones of the Wolves, yet they were equally deadly and precisely calculated.

Almost half an hour later Logan stood on top of a pile of slaughtered gaunts and looked at the battlefield, in every direction he could see corpses ripped to shreds, mauled with thunder hammers and sliced with blades. Even if it was an impressive, yet a grim sight he knew that it was just the beginning of the true battle and that it was a probe sent by the Hive Mind to test the defenses and see what were their tactics.

"A good victory," Dante said as he approached the position where Logan stood. "Not a single warrior dead and just a couple are injured."

"Aye," Logan nodded and looked at the horde outside of the void shield. "But I fear that it is the first and the last such a victory. Maybe we can try this trick one more time, but I doubt that it will work more than that. We are bleeding them in space and shoot down hundreds of pods, but there are millions of them."

Dante tilted his head in agreement and was silent for a long moment. "Perhaps I should have evacuated the system," he said after a moment. "Evacuate it and launch Exterminatus when they land."

"Perhaps you should have," Logan said and then looked at the Lord Commander. "But it is your lair and you don't want to give it away, at least not without a fight and that's why I came to support you. We, Wolves, are pack creatures and we don't want to lose one of the pack if we can avoid it and even less we like giving away our home." Logan paused and then turned to look at the walls of the monastery. "I swear on my honor as the Great Wolf of the Space Wolves chapter that I will either defend this planet or die doing so."

Dante nodded at the oath and the two of them walked back to the fortress as the troops on the walls reinforced their positions and resupplied themselves, preparing for the next wave of foul xenos. Logan smiled thinly at the sight, even if the xenos were clever he also had quite a lot of surprises prepared for them and so far none of them was revealed to the world, all of them at best could be used twice and he was not going to waste them on such probes that could be slaughtered with normal tools of war.

o-0-o

Harry entered his quarters aboard the strike cruiser and dumped his gear into a chest bolted to the floor before walking to the middle of the room and sitting down. He closed his eyes and focused on the heartbeat of his hearts, slowing it down and entering a state of meditation as his mind rested and calmed, preparing itself for combat against Chaos and its taint. He knew that he already fought against it during his first and so far only mission, but then it was just against Cultists, here it was going to be against demons.

o-0-o

A/N:

Why Grimnar was given command? He brought the most troops and supplies, so he deserves that most, also makes directing the battle easier as if you have the strongest army unhappy and fighting on its own the rest also suffers.

Flaming blades? Those that remember lore know that the Emperor had/has one and recreating the deed shouldn't be a particularly hard task for someone determined to do it.

Void shields? How they work depends on canon and in some version it is said that a lesser power setting can let in slow moving objects, so I used it here. I also made it so that fire coming from inside can pass through them as any other variant wouldn't make much sense.