Hello, readers! The world must be ending because I posted a chapter within a week of the previous one! I also realized that I never included the lines that represent setting changes, so I finally included them. Enjoy!

Year: 38,541

Location: Solar System on the eastern outskirts of the Damascus Gulf

When the ship exited the Webway, a strange planet took up the entire viewing window. It was unusual not in how different it looked, but its familiarity; a deep blue surrounding a deep green landmass.

Alexander stared for a long time. The planet reminded him too much of Earth, and it brought back memories of when he actually was contributing to humanity. But now, he was forced to watch as humanity struggled on, devolving into the savagery that he most hated about his race.

"Computer, scan the planet. I want to know its history, its government, its problems, and its people. If there's a wireless network of some sort, log on and archive all of the data. I want a report in half an hour."

"Very good, sir."

"Good. I need to take a break," said Alexander, standing up and stretching as he left the control deck. "Hey, I'll be back in a few. Make sure nothing unusually bad happens while I'm gone.

Without looking behind, Fred and George saluted.

While walking into the living quarters, Alexander swore he heard giggling coming from the back corner. He walked towards the sound, and poking his head from behind the wall, he saw Hector and Mary. When they saw Alexander, they both blushed and hastily scooted away from each other.

"Were you two making out?"

Hector and Mary looked at each other, then back at Alexander. Shaking their heads vigorously, they nervously replied, "No."

"Of course you weren't!" said Alexander sarcastically. "And I'm John Lennon."

Hector cleared his throat. "I thought you said you were John Lennon once."

"Shut up! That's not the point!"

Fred at that moment came sprinting into the room, face full of panic. "Hey." He turned towards Mary and Hector. "Were you making out?"

"Shut up George."

"It's Fred."

"Whatever! What is it?"

"This is going to sound cliché, but we have company."

When captain Aralias saw an Eldar ship appear out of the Webway, he did not expect five humans hail him yelling, "don't shoot!" It was a strange sight.

"What is this? Who are you?"

One of the Redheads spoke up. "Wayne, sir. Bruce…Wayne." For some reason, all of the humans next to him gave him a strange look, like he was crazy or something.

"I'm Peter Parker!" Shouted the other redhead.

"I'm Serena Kyle!" the girl said.

Her boyfriend (well, he guessed that he was her boyfriend. It was obvious that they had just made out and were denying it.) spoke next. "Clark Kent."

"Bond. James Bond," said the last one. It looked like he was trying not to laugh, and there was something suspicious about it. Whatever. He wasn't an Inquisitor anyhow.

"Why, may I ask, are you in a ship belonging to a race of filthy xenos?"

James Bond spoke up. "We were captured, but we escaped. After pushing a few buttons, a hole opened up and it spit us out here. Look, we're tired, so can you please just drop us off?"

Aralias pondered it for a minute. They were pretty suspicious. They were piloting a xenos vessel, for the Emperor's sake! And it looked like they made up their names on the spot. But he wasn't paid enough for this job. "Sure, you can land the ship in our docking bay. For the moment. Then, protocol dictates we must destroy the ship."

They whispered to each other for a few moments, and finally Peter Parker turned to the viewscreen. "Yeah, just give us a few minutes."

The Eldar ship made a very pretty fireworks display. A large blast, followed by a brilliant flash of white light, and then it vanished. Everyone watched from the viewscreen inside the control room of the Emperor's Wrath. Nobody really paid attention to them; most of the crew had seen stranger things in their time and weren't going to question the presence of five oddly-dressed humans. They were going to land in five minutes anyway, so nobody was going to have much time for interrogating. Alexander, however, was incredibly bored. He had waited around for over 35,000 years in a cryo pod, and he seemed to have become more impatient after the incident.

"Do you have that report yet, computer?"

"Yes, sir." The chip in Alexander's palm began to glow and projected a rapid stream of images onto the nearest wall. They were pictures of pristine mountainsides, rolling hills, and stormy oceans at first, but the images became worse and worse. Wastelands full of toxic chemicals with warlords fighting for control of scraps. Cities with buildings hundreds of stories tall, and a small nobility that owned palaces with platinum cutlery and armies of servants. The lower levels, however, looked like the slums of Victorian England. Filth everywhere, clouds made of ash, and deformed people, trudging through their miserable lives. Factories spewing smoke and fire, and a group of what appeared to be soldiers beating a child in the streets. But what really disturbed Alexander was that most of the people had strange deformations on them. Their skin was scared, deformed. Some had one eye, and others had three; many were shriveled up on the streets as if they were dead. They probably were.

"Computer, what the hell is going on here?"

"The human residents call the planet Gaea, sir. According to the Imperial archives, the colony was established in 38,119."

"A few years after those Space Marines committed genocide."

"Exactly, sir. This planet, and this solar system, in fact, is relatively sparsely populated, only about 7 billion per planet."

"Sparsely populated? How many people does a densely populated planet have?"

"Hundreds of billions, sir."

Alexander put his hands on his head and sighed. "Good gods!"

"And most of the planet's population is located in what they call a 'hive city.' Living conditions for the average man similar to those of Victorian England."

"So everything I worked for is ruined?"

"There's more, sir. The sun gives off more radiation than these planets' atmospheres can absorb, so those without the financial means to afford protection are slightly mutated. The nobility are normal humans, while those on the lower levels of the city are mutants and are treated as such. In addition, the mutation has made many of these people psykers."

"What? How does that work without the planet being destroyed?"

"They are incredibly weak. The only difference is that they have a higher IQ, but since there is no education, nothing helps."

"Anything else I should know?"

"Since the Imperium does not trust psykers, every ten years these ships come and take away as many people to Terra, whose souls are given to the Emperor. The imperial guards, the main army for the Imperium, hate psykers and are especially brutal to the population here."

Alexander almost crushed computer in his palm. "I dedicated my life to humanitarian causes, and this is the result?"

The four other psykers looked at him, but it was Hector who spoke up. "What should we do?"

After a few minutes, Alexander took his face out of his hands, wiped away a tear, and got that determined, enraged look he sometimes got. "We're going to start from square one. I want this government in this entire Zeus damned solar system gone."

Hector looked at Alexander as if he were crazy. "Whoa, whoa, whoa. You're saying you want us to overthrow an interplanetary government with an unlimited population! The population worships your brother, and even if we could start a revolt, we would be crushed within days!"

"Well," began Alexander, with an almost mischievous smile on his face. "Not if we control the military."

"Are you sure this is going to work?" asked Hector as they walked down the ramp from the landing platform and into the lower levels of the city. From the 70th level, things did not look so bad; the sky was relatively clear, hovercraft whizzed around building like on Corescant from Star Wars, and everyone was nicely dressed and friendly. But down below, one could easily make out the hellish wasteland. And that was where they planned to go.

Alexander looked more confident than usual, he had a bounce in his stride that he hadn't had for over 35,000 years. "Look, it's simple. I join the army and move up the ranks, you and Mary become upper-class politicians and gain control of the government, and Fred and George inform the public and cause mayhem. It'll work!"

"You do realize that this will take decades, if not centuries, to pull off!"

"Hector, you have to remember that we're psykers. Given enough time, we can do anything."

Life sucked at level 0. The streets were covered in garbage and waste, diseased and dead bodies were strewn everywhere, and the air was more ash than stuff that was actually breathable. Yet, there was still life within the narrow streets. A small market seemed to be flourishing, selling everything from knives to gruel. A man argued with a merchant over the price of an apple (some things never change) while another boy was slipping quietly into the stand in an attempt to steal some food. A mutant played a lute for money, and two children ran through the crowd, playing tag.

"Wait! Please! I have five brothers and a dying father! You can't take me away!"

Alexander turned towards the screaming and saw two men dressed in grey hauling away a struggling fourteen-year-old boy.

"Shut up, mutant!" yelled one of the guards, striking him in the head with the butt of his gun. The boy had six fingers on his right hand. He fell to the ground, moaning in pain.

"Excuse me," said Alexander to a merchant next to him, never taking his eyes off the scene unfolding before him. "What's going on with him?"

"Oh, that boy? Conscription. The Gaean infantry doesn't last very long, and they're always looking for new recruits, willing or not."

"And you think that's acceptable?"

The merchant gave Alexander a confused, almost startled, look. "Young man, those are dangerous words to be saying. People have disappeared for saying worse. There was this one time when…where'd he go?"

So far, this had been the worst day of Marcus's life. As the guards dragged him away from his family, his home, everything he knew to his inevitable death, he forced himself to think positive. He would die serving his Emperor, and wasn't that what was most glorious in this universe? But he had a plan! He would be the first mutant to change levels; he was going to raise him and his family out of destitution and into prosperity! His brothers and sisters were younger than six, and it would be two more years before they could start working in the lasgun factory. They would have to steal, and the consequences would be dire. He could imagine Gabriel without a right hand…the thought made him shudder.

Then, a man with olive skin walked to the guards. "Excuse me, but do you really need this man?

The male guard, a short squat man, looked at the stranger with disgust. "Of course! We need only one more soldier to fill our quota for this planet, and everyone else eligible has either run away, hidden, or fought us off!"

The man looked at the guard, then at Marcus, then back at the guard. "Then I volunteer as tribute."

"What?"

"Never mind. Stupid joke. I'm willing to switch places with that man. I want to fight."

Could it be true? Marcus couldn't believe it! It was if the Emperor himself had given him a gift, a gift so precious that he would treasure it forever, his life.

Both guards looked at each other and shrugged. "Okay, come with us." He shoved Marcus away. Hard. He fell into the mud (or at least what he hoped was mud) and turned around to see the man standing over him. "Why?"

The man bent over and whispered in his ear. "I can think of five reasons, and they're all six years old."

Marcus was too stunned to question how this stranger knew about his siblings. "What's your name?"

He looked at him for a second. "Alexander." With that, the guards grabbed him and led him away.

Okay, and that's the end! Tune in next time, when there's some action. And now, it's time to respond to comments!

BIBOTOT: Thanks for the encouragement, but I'm not really sure I'm going to really talk about the parallel between the gods just yet.

Rando Sadist Cat: Glad you liked it!

Spy of Influence: Same as above, although I don't know who Mat Ward is. I'm still glad I distracted you.

Also, reviews for the review god! I don't even care if they're flames; they make me laugh.