Elsewhere, Long ago
As he awoke for the first time, the unnamed Primarch found himself suspended in a capsule filled with a warm liquid, swirling with thick multicolored currents of unknown substances.
Though he himself lacked the ways to properly describe this environment, the boy knew one thing.
He was terrified.
But he did not call this sensation fear.
Jolts of cold energy flowed through his veins. His hearts hammered in his chest as if threatening to burst. His breath came in short rapid gasps, much quicker than he had before he gained consciousness.
There was an apparatus on his face, covering his mouth and nose, with hoses reaching above him to connect with something unseen. Though he did not know it, this mask was providing him oxygen, keeping him alive.
But right now it felt as if it was choking him.
He needed to get it off.
He ripped at the edges sealed to his skin. Pulling with all his strength trying to take it off.
Sounds rushed above his head and a new type of fluid flowed into his lonely chamber. His eyelids felt heavy and his heart rate started to slow.
Loosing strength, his hands and arms went slack and the boy could no longer move. But he did not go to sleep just yet. Still panicky with fear he began to look around this strange world. One of his hands drifted forward and came to a sudden stop at almost his full arm extension.
Beyond that barrier he looked out and saw polished floors and tall walls, laced with conduits and pipes. Banks of lights and displays were scattered everywhere along the catwalks, but meant nothing to him. He didn't know what any of this was, he had not been conscious before now.
Fighting the weariness overcoming him he leaned forward and saw others short distances away floating in tanks like him. But not like him at the same time, they appeared smaller, less grown. And they were not moving just yet, they slept like he had before as they drifted limply in their watery world.
All of them were being tended to by grotesque figures hunched over in single mindedness. These pale unions of flesh and metal moved back and forth between the monitors on the walls and the tanks adjacent to them. They appeared to have a body of flesh like him but it was a twisted mockery strewn with sharp edges of metal, and hideous glowing lights badly concealed by a plain white robe. One of these beings was adjusting something on the panels in front his tank.
Weaker now but no less afraid the boy tried to move again but his body wouldn't respond although his mind was very active.
From down the corridor a new figure appeared. One very different from the figures he had observed so far.
This man towered above the mechanical technicians, no cybernetics marred his form. He wore a majestic suit of golden armor adorned with a long red robe. The man had a very regal face, and long flowing black hair, beneath a shining golden laurel crown adorned with many jewels. And he glowed with an almost unbearable brightness. The boy shut his eyes and almost passed out but he forced himself to look again.
The giant walked down the halls pressing his hands against the tanks with the others in them, he looked at the displays, and spoke for a moment with the technicians and then moved on.
Until he came to his tank.
When the boy met the eyes of the man, there was a surprised look on the giant's face. The golden one outside had not expected any of his sons to be awake so soon.
Leaning forward he pressed one hand against the container and smiled at the boy floating there. Finally the boy felt less afraid. Almost as if he could feel the reassurance and sense of safety that the man outside was trying to project.
More of the calming substance was flushed into the tank and this time he did not fight the wave of blackness that swept over him. Sensing that he was not in any danger. He drifted back to sleep and dreamt of what he saw, and the world waiting beyond this place.
Later
An armored silhouette removed its bulky gauntlet from the front of his pod and thudded away out of sight on the walkway.
Something was wrong
Danger was coming.
Dormant instincts were waking up screaming at him to get ready to fight.
He tore himself away from his pleasant dreams and twisted in his tank trying to free himself again.
He had to get out.
Had to find the golden one, he could protect him.
The old feelings of fear and panic were coming back stronger than ever.
But it was too late for anyone to help him.
The corridor outside was suddenly filled with fire. Shades of red, violet, and purple engulfed everything outside. The technicians monitoring the tanks and displays were suddenly set ablaze. They flailed helplessly screaming in pain though the boy did not hear their cries of suffering.
The front of the glass capsule suddenly rushed forward and the boy painfully slammed into it. He did not know what was happening but he could no longer see out of the tank. His view was now a solid wall of flame.
It felt as if he was flying, though he had no idea where or why.
However patterns soon appeared in the fire, but not just swirls shapes in the flames. Evil faces leering down at him laughing at his misery. Indescribable monsters clawed at the tank trying to get inside. Others smiled mockingly, trying to beckon him out. His world shook with the violence of these unknown aggressors.
Beyond those, he could see mysterious twisted landscapes beyond the faces, and flames now and again. They passed by sometimes too fast for him to get a good idea of what they were. Or maybe he passed through them to quickly
All these horrors were too much for the boy to witness. His mind began to go back into the merciful darkness of unconsciousness.
He floated on endlessly through the tides of darkness only occasionally waking up and still seeing that the nightmare the world had become outside had not gone away.
All sense of time was burned away.
It seemed as though this was to be his world forever.
Until, at long last the flames started to disappear, and the demon faces vanished. As he was spat out from that realm of fire and evil. Down towards a new landscape,
A landscape that was fast approaching.
The air itself caught fire around the pod as he passed through the planet's upper atmosphere, along with the sound barrier. A mere moment later, with a massive crash his tank smashed into the side of a snow covered mountain. The impact almost knocked him unconscious. The pod bounced once and slammed down again, this time landing and sliding further down the sheer black cliffs plowing a deep trench into the earth and snow as his tank scraped to a halt.
Cracks finally appeared in the glass barrier and the fluid slowly leaked out of the tank. And he floated down to the bottom as it left.
It was dark out, and the boy had no idea what had just happened to him. Paralyzed in shock from this ordeal, quietly going limp in the fetal position at the bottom of the container and attempting to rest.
But his luck was not going to be that good tonight.
The tank suddenly shook, startling the boy awake.
Something was pushing at the weakened glass trying to get in.
He looked up and his gut lurched in terror. A dark creature of shadow and scattered white bone spikes, hooked its claws into a few of the large gaps in the glass and began rolling the tank to the side. It had long limbs and a slightly hunched over stance. Evil red eyes glowed on its long white mask of bone decorated with swirling, twisting red lines.
The device on his face was loose so the boy finally grabbed hold of one of the edges and ripped it off. He gasped and filled his lungs full of his first breath of fresh air and let it out in an explosive gasp.
The beast sniffed at the breaks and missing pieces in the glass wall. Pushing the empty capsule around with its long upper arms, trying to get at the boy in side.
But when it attempted to shove its head through one of the larger gaps, it became stuck from all of its twisting and over eagerness. The capsule however had rotated around so that one of the larger holes was at a convenient place for the boy to crawl through.
It was a tight fit and he almost eviscerated himself on the jagged edges, but he escaped and stood tall in the cold night air.
The larger pack circled around the pod and their prey.
Only to have a second creature leap forward from the shadows snarling and gnashing its teeth in bloodlust.
Time seemed to slow to a crawl.
Caught off guard, he had no plan of action. And the monster was nearing too fast for him to dodge out of the way.
His arms rose in reflex and he had gripped and locked both of his hands on the creature's black furred shoulders before he knew what was happening. Now the two of them were locked in a shoving match pushing back and forth before the trench his arrival had made next to the edge of a cliff.
Claws dug into his upper arms as the beast attempted to break from his grasp, or force the boy to the ground. Still snapping its slavering jaw at his face.
The boy stood firm and pushed back as hard as he could.
Here he could control the situation.
At least he thought until the first one now freed from the glass charged at his back. Leapt and sank its teeth over where his left shoulder sloped up to his neck.
He howled in a mix of surprise, rage, and pain then spun trying to dislodge the creature. Shaking and turning but still holding onto the beast in front of him.
The one on his back shook its head deepening its bite refusing to let go as it drank his blood. This animal was heavy and its sudden tackle and added momentum sent all three of them falling over the ledge.
The other Beowolves followed, throwing back their heads and howling into the night.
As they fell the boy mustered all of his strength and threw the one before him to the side. Sending it tumbling away down a path of packed snow.
It was a long drop down onto the rocky ground. But the impact only knocked the wind out of him. The beast on his back faired far worse, caught between the ground and its prey. There was an audible crack from a breaking spine as it landed on a pile of boulders. The howls coming from its mouth instantly changed to cries of pain as it attempted to roll itself back onto all fours.
It was helpless as its intended victim appeared again. Raising a jagged rock high above his head in both hands and smashed it down on its face.
Again, and again, and again, each blow harder than the last.
The sound of cracking rocks and hungry growls drew his eyes skyward. The pack was crawling straight down the sheer cliff face. Coming to avenge their dead and kill the interloper from the sky.
But the beast he had cast aside got there first.
He quickly judged angles and speed.
With a yell he threw himself backwards dodging the flying monster and awkwardly landed arms outstretched on the rocks that his first kill was slowly dissolving on.
Many rocks long, and short, thin and thick all manner of different types but basically the same shaped rocks.
His battle with the monsters had spilled over into a bone yard of Grimm.
His right hand landed in the open mouth of one of the long dead skeletons and when he tried to stand up the calcified teeth pushed deep and painfully into his hand.
With all of the adrenaline coursing through him he didn't feel much.
Instincts guided his hands.
If this object had harmed him it may also harm what was trying to hurt him.
Getting a firm grip on the jaw he ripped it out of the skeleton and swung himself back around to face his foe.
It was keeping back, pacing a few feet away, cautious now after seeing the fate of its pack mate, waiting for reinforcements.
The boy raised his make shift weapon and his empty left hand up into a fighting stance.
Beowolves prefer to ambush weaker prey when alone. This prey had already killed its brother and looked ready and willing to do the same to it, the wolf began to back away.
Trying to buy just a few more seconds.
Like a stalking predator, the boy saw this and registered it as weakness. Screaming and fueled with animal savagery he lunged at the retreating monster. Closing the distance in the blink of an eye.
His left hand latched onto its right ear to keep it still as he drove the jawbone up and into the side of the wolf again and again. The wolf yelped and whimpered in pain, then attempted to rush forward in and knock over its attacker and escape into the night.
Spinning right he threw the monster hard to the ground and knelt down on its chest pushing his right knee directly onto the dreadful hole he had carved into its side. Then brought his blade directly down into its wide open eye, piercing the brain and ending its existence.
The pack began to howl for vengeance.
And the Primarch leapt to meet them
Black smoke and black blood clouded the air as their battle raged.
Roars of rage and pain from both the boy and the creatures echoed down the mountain. The Grimm lashed out slicing into his skin. He broke their arms like dry twigs. They snapped at his face he turned their skulls and masks into fragments with hammer blows from his fists.
He tripped the berserking Beowolves into each other, casting them to the ground and hacking at their sides and necks with his jawbone knife that cut deeper into his hand with every strike.
Slaughtering the monstrous creatures without any hesitation or thought until finally only one remained.
It was easily the biggest of the pack, covered in far more spikes and scars then any of its dissolving brethren. Half as tall as the mad eyed child snarling right back into its burning red eyes.
Each waiting for the other to make the first move.
The wolf lashed out first, swinging its heavy right arm straight for the boy's head. Nimbly he ducked and dodged beneath the blow, and rammed his bone blade into the stomach of the alpha.
The beast yelped in surprise and pain. And the boy twisted the weapon deeper as the wolf reared up and howled. Jagged white claws raked across the boys back but he felt no pain, kicking out and smashing his heel into the alpha's right leg.
The bone splintered and the wolf fell down onto the superhuman shoulders of the youth. He latched his fingers into the filthy black fur. Screaming out as his muscles burned in exertion the boy raised the wolf high above his head.
Then in one fluid motion, brought the wolf down as hard as he could. While shooting his right knee up into its bleeding guts. Breaking its back in two.
Shadows spilled over his lower body as the wolf died and faded back to smoke and the immaterium.
Panting heavily trying to catch his breath he leaned forward like an animal. Curling his hands into claws ready for the next attack that was not going to come. And as this realization hit him he could only do one thing.
Fall down onto his hands and knees and violently wretch up bile from his empty stomach.
Eventually his sickened sounds turned into simple gasps for air. He wiped away the saliva from his mouth then sat back on his ankles to tack stock of his surroundings.
It was dark, skeletal remains dotted the way down the mountain into the tall distant shapes covered with the cool white powder all around him. Even farther above him, the rift that brought him to this world began to fade away. Revealing the uncountable dots of light scattered across the dark night sky.
Those did not hold his attention for long as he noticed the shattered moon in the sky, which seemed to be the brightest source of light anywhere. Drawing in all of his focus with its surreal presence
He shivered as the wind chilled him to the core.
Howls echoed through the trees from far away. More creatures were coming, looking for their kin.
He had to leave, had to get away from this place.
A pile of abandoned rusty tools lay placed on a tarp not far away in the bone yard, forgotten by some unknown scientist or archaeologist. None of these things held interest to him, except for the tarp.
He remembered the cape on the shoulders of the golden giant, from when he first woke stuck in the capsule. He took it from the ground and draped it across his shoulders, shielding himself from what cold he could feel
Oblivious to the wounds he had received from the creatures he took off down the mountain.
Not knowing where he was headed or what he was going to do, but instincts saying this was better than staying.