Plague Planet, 9 XXX.060.M42 (Records declared Extremis Diabolus by Ordo Malleus)
The world was a festering hellpit. The sickening paradigm of the fallen Primarch's homeworld of Barbarus was a foul recreation of the youthful memories he had once experienced. Many millennia ago, Mortarion had freed the people of his world, his adopted brothers and sisters, from the tyrannical overlords who had tormented them for their own sick and twisted pleasure. Yet in a cruel irony, he now sat upon the slime and pus-ridden throne atop the noxious clouds of plague-gas, lording over those beneath him like the man who had raised him in such cruelty.
Before him stood the maleficent form of the one who had brought him to this state. The ancient suit of Terminator armor he wore was long encrusted with filth and bile, spurs of pestilential bone forcing themselves from his back through the shattered and twisted adamantium. Great gouts of green smoke flowed from the bone-tubes, Warp flies entering and exiting his body at a whim as he directed the horn fused to his head and helm. This was Typhus - and for what reason he had come to visit his Primarch, one knew naught.
"Have you come to take your place among us?" The winged form of the Death Lord grasped Silence loosely. "Have you come to rule over your home?"
"No..." The sickening voice of the bloated Chaos Lord resonated throughout the throne room. "You have failed in your duties to Father Nurgle. You have not brought forth sickness and decay throughout the galaxy to strengthen his domain." He firmly grasped Manreaper with his two hands, stepping closer to his 'father.'
"And that is why I have come with a warning. You are to wreak havoc in the name of Nurgle. Spread the gifts within your blessed body throughout the galaxy and wreak havoc upon the domain of the Corpse-Emperor. Then the suffering of your people shall swell ten times over as they further beg for the Prince of Plagues to deliver them from your wrath. But should you choose to ignore his warning, your time as his most favored... shall come to an end."
The daemonic Primarch pondered the message from his favored son - the one who had brought him into the servitude of the Dark Gods. "I shall pursue the agenda I have followed since achieving this state. Do not challenge me, Typhus."
Deliberately ignorant of the words of his father, the hulking brute stepped forward, blade raised. A pair of Deathshroud rose to meet him, their bodies infested with bilious corruption as they raised their own Power Scythes, moving to protect their father. Yet a single swift stroke was all that it took to cleave the fallen Terminators in two, bifurcating them diagonally as their cleaved forms slowly dissolved into pools of slop, decaying bone floating to the top of the puddles. "I am the Chosen of Nurgle. Your sentimentality sickens me. Let us determine this day as to who is His chosen."
For the first time in millennia, the daemonic Primarch stood. Rotting wings jutted in an almost graceful manner from Mortarion's back as he raised Silence, the great Power Scythe he had utilized for millennia. "You have one final opportunity, Typhus. Leave and do not return."
"You were but the harbinger which the King of Endless Perfidy used to spread his blessings. I am not loyal to you, gene-father. I am loyal to my true father - to Nurgle, Liege of Buboes, Prince of Plague, and Master of Disease. His forces are strong when mortals fear death - and when I offer your rotted heart to Nurgle, that he may make more vile diseases to spread across the galaxy, I shall take true leadership of the Death Guard and we shall begin a pandemic that shall tear the Imperium asunder." He raised his own Daemon Weapon, scythe dripping pus from its corroded blade as fleshy bile further grew on its shaft. "The flesh sacrificed to Nurgle at my hands is innumerable in measure. Yet you merely sulk upon your throne."
"Silence!" Mortarion swung his weapon, which connected with Manreaper blade to blade. "I am free of my Father's commands. I may do as I wish - and none is your concern." The two curved blades clashed once more, engaging one another in the depths of Mortarion's sanctum atop the highest mountain on the Plague Planet.
"You are free to fail at your duties as a servant of the Plaguefather." Typhus responded, a strike nearly impaling the daemon prince's shoulder. "Must I remind you of the humiliation you experienced at the hands of that foul servant of the Emperor? How he inscribed a name upon your broken heart as your body succumbed to fatigue and wear? No champion of Nurgle deserves his position through such experience."
Anger rose up through the Primarch as he rescinded his scythe, sending Typhus back several feet with a strike to the face from its pommel that left a barely discernable dent in the corrupted adamantium of his helmet. "I was the one who made you! I gave you whatever power you once held in the Death Guard. And now you dare defy me?"
"It is not your will to be defied. It is that of the Plague Lord. The Master of Pestilence. You are not my master. From the moment the rot of Nurgle was seeded within my heart, you lost all claim to me." Typhus swiftly recovered from the attack, swinging at the maleficent Mortarion as he grazed the ancient filth incrusted armor of the Barbaran Plate.
"I will end you, Typhus."
"No." The former First Captain responded, before bringing a gauntleted hand to his helmet. Ooze rushed down the shoulder plates of his armor as his face was exposed for the first time in millennia, the visage haunting, like that of a mummified skull with the faintest flicker of life in its eyes. Foul maggots dripped from his shriveled lips as his rotten teeth shifted into the shape of a grin. And with a single word uttered from the mouth of Nurgle's champion, Mortarion dropped to the ground, barely stable as he attempted to gain another foothold.
"Where... Where did you hear that name?"
"I have my ways... but now, you shall be spurred to support the armies of the Plague Lord, whether you desire to or not. It is inevitable... my Lord."
And with a single strike, a torch was passed down.
Savarus, Subsector Venenus, 686.061.M42
"You know, I don't think I've ever explained how much I fucking hate infighting."
The Millennial paced back and forth upon the bridge of the Eclipse, frustration evident in his voice. While the Alpha Crusade had accomplished its initial goals, with a myriad of daemons slain and worlds in the Eye becoming outposts for the Imperium to deal with attacks by the forces of Abaddon, he found himself being drawn more and more persistently back to the Imperium. Strife continually arose throughout the millions of worlds under humanity's control, and though he was an Inquisitor, he found himself redirected consistently by the Inqusitor Lords above him. On this occasion, the man he was 'running an errand for,' as he had termed it, was Fyodor Karamazov, the infamous Pyrophant Judge of Salem Proctor.
The world of Savarus Primus had been under seige by xenos forces of a malevolent type - the steel automatons of the Necrons from the Tomb World of Sarkon were beseiging the planet. Three chapters of Astartes - the Absolvers, the Tempest Guard, and the Emperor's Wolves - had fallen to the overwhelming onslaught of the Necrons, forced to retreat with their numbers devastated, lest they be forever wiped from the history of the Imperium. To form a defense against the infamous foes of mankind, the planetary governor of Savarus Primus had apparently enlisted the help of a group of rogue tech-priests - students of the Levelist philosophies of Nomen Ryne - to develop a form of genetic super-soldier. These super-soldiers were not only a violation of Mechanicus principle - they were also heresy in the eyes of the Ordo Hereticus, deliberate mutilation of the sacred human form.
Evidence pointed to a siphoning of orphaned women from the world's Schola Progenium, originally destined for the halls of the Sororitas, as the source of subjects for these horrendous experiments - but the results had been surprising. In numbers that no Codex-following Astartes chapter could muster, these 'Amazonians,' as they had been called, were driving back the Necrons, their bodies armored in the most durable carapace armor the world's meager forges could craft. And with the siege now broken, the Mechanicus had demanded the governor's head and the death of the test subjects - as well as the annihilation of the rogue tech-priests.
"Inquisitor, you know that negativity is not a solution to this crisis." Dalia responded, her flesh still shimmering with sparks. "We must take the governor into custody and deal with his situation delicately."
"Dalia... you do realize I don't have much of a fucking choice, right? Not with Inquisitor Lord Crazypantsoff on my ass twenty-four seven." He grimaced. "And the Mechanicus too... The deluded shitstorm. I swear, there's no right solution."
"You'll determine something. You always do." She responded, placing a hand firmly on his shoulder as the main lift opened, revealing the form of several power-armored Astartes, their glistening black plate a sign as to their chapter loyalties, iron cross adorning their pauldrons.
"Inquisitor, have you yet determined your plan of attack so we may bring this heresy to an end?" Marshal Theseus Cybuyus was the commander of the crusading force of Black Templars that had soon aligned themselves with the Millennial, seeing the Alpha Crusade as an opportunity to slaughter the foes of the Imperium - including the vile traitors of the Horus Heresy - within their own territory. Though he relished the destruction of heretics, Theseus viewed the incident on Savarus as a stumbling block, causing the crusade to falter.
"Not yet, Marshal." The Millennial shifted in his suit of Ignatus power armor, looking down upon the many scars and dings that the relic had gathered before turning his attention to the Mechanicus emissary. "Adamaris... is there anything I can possibly do to get the Mechanicus off my back?"
Unlike most tech-priests, Adamaris Jonquil had been fitted with a single mechadendrite, in concert with her cybernetic legs. Her master, Magos Xenologist Erlan Klute, found his own crusade against the Tyranids stymied by the assault of the Necrons on Savarus as he deviated to the world. His belief in the philosophy of Primus Humanum, that the pure human form was what best served as a vessel for knowledge blessed by the Emperor, ensured that the fire within his artificial heart would be stirred thanks to the abhorrant genetics program.
"Nary a single thing will stop my master from purging the world of the taint of Hereteks. That said, he desires no conflict with the Inquisition." She was... oddly rational, and the young Inquisitor took a mental note of her tendencies to approach solutions from a more sensible angle.
"Dammit... Well, I guess that leaves me with no choice." He turned to the Black Templar. "I need a squad of Battle-Brothers. Preferably those who can show patience. What I intend to do is, to say the least, risky business, and I have no intentions of seeing people get wantonly killed over this if there's no reason for blood to be shed. Admittedly, I don't read my daily devotional quotes as much as I probably should - considering there are hundreds of thousands of them and enough variations to make my head spin. That said, I suppose I'm reminded of one that fits my philosophy." He turned away, gazing out into space as he eyed the crimson cog-ships surrounding the world.
"Life is the Emperor's currency. Spend it well."
