New chapter. As always, the next two chapters are up on my P-a-t-r-e-o-n, here: h*t*t*p*s :/ w*w*w . p*a*t*r*e*o*n user - ? - u = 52718582 (remove the spaces and stars)
Your name is Ushotan.
And you are a living weapon. You are a hammer to shatter the enemy, a breaker of cities, a butcher of innocents.
Some have tried to dress that up in fancy words. Your master, the Golden Man, calls you and your brothers his Thunder Warriors. He has given you a pretentious title, Legate of the Fourth Legion.
But you understand your purpose, no matter what pretty words others use to describe you. To kill and destroy everything that may stand in your master's way.
Nothing more, nothing less.
…or at least, that was what you thought for the longest time.
Then things changed. One day, some of your brothers were taken away to the labs. It was nothing out of the ordinary. The Golden Man and his fleshsmiths would take some of you away, to make changes, to test new changes, to create stronger warriors and killers for them.
They would claim it was to help you, to heal you of the pain and rage, but that was a lie. They were the ones to inflict this on you in the first place, after all. They wanted you to be like this.
Except, this time was different. Your brothers came back calmer and saner. Their pain truly had been healed, and they no longer screamed in agony at night, they did not abruptly keel over and die during battle despite suffering no wounds. And the rage, the red-hot rage that has been your companion for so long…it seemed gone from them.
You didn't trust it, at first. The rage was your ally. Your brothers had merely been made placid and obedient, nothing more. Like the Golden Man's own bodyguards, all shiny and gilded, but with all the humanity hollowed out of them, shells incapable of doing anything but following orders.
But then, your turn came. You didn't want to go, but you knew better than to disobey the Golden Man.
And for the first time in decades, you awoke with your mind calm and clear. The rage and the pain that has been yours for as long as you could remember…they were gone.
You could even remember something of your youth, of the boy who was entranced by the words and image of the Golden Man, who eagerly joined the army and then volunteered to become a Thunder Warrior.
You had admired him, then. You had let yourself be blinded by his radiance and his sweet words, and forgotten the old stories of Men of Gold, of tyrants who looked like gods and heroes but commanded armies of monsters.
How young and foolish you were.
Despite your fears, you are still yourself. The healing was truly just that and did not suddenly leave you a mindless drone. You were still yourself…simply no longer ill.
And it was an illness, you understand that now. You volunteered for it to become stronger, and even after you lost faith in your master, you embraced the anger and the agony he gave you.
And you still fight for the Golden Man because that is who you are. The rage and pain are gone now, but you are still a creature of war. This is your calling and you do not regret it.
The Golden Man, though you still do not like him, is the least awful master you could have in this world, so there is little point in rebellion or defection.
But one thing still baffled you. Why would the Golden Man heal you? You did not think for one second he cared about you. You were his war dogs, and nothing more.
Despite that, he had defied your expectations and healed you. Healed all your brothers and sisters.
You still served him, but at last, he treated you like soldiers rather than merely rabid dogs he kept on a leash.
It didn't make any sense.
Then you heard tales of her. The newest of the Golden Man's fleshsmiths, who seemed to know and understand more than any of the others. Perhaps more than the Golden Man himself. She was the one responsible for your healing, the rumors said.
You wanted to meet her, but the Golden Man kept her locked away and kept you away on campaigns. Now that you were no longer mad, he had other uses for you, to capture and guard fortresses and cities instead of merely reducing them to rubble.
But you are still curious. You do want to meet her someday. Because you can see her hand everywhere, in the slowly lightening skies, in the trees and forests that have sprung up everywhere, in the slowly growing happiness of the people of the Imperium.
Most of all, in the changes to the Golden Man himself, his iron fist becoming gentler than you ever thought it could be.
Right now, though, you are unsure if you ever will meet her.
For the last three days and three nights, you have fought your greatest enemy yet. You had thought you had seen all the horrors that Terra has to offer, from Kalagann's mad creations to the Priest-King's abominations.
The armies of the Ethnarchy and the Selenar are not so different. Many of their troops are twisted creatures, abominations as large as you and your comrades or even larger. Some are creatures created from melding man and animal together, towering bull men and snarling women with the heads and claws of lions. And even stranger, more twisted things, warriors that look like the mythical dragons of old if they were shaped into something vaguely resembling a man, men and women with crimson eyes and sharp fangs, moving with lethal speed and grace, and even hulking soldiers in power armour, clearly made in your image.
But these are all things you have fought before. They are not exactly the same as your previous enemies, but they are of the same breed. The same breed that you are from, monsters created by fleshsmiths to serve the whims of tyrants.
The real problem is the armies of iron soldiers that the Ethnarchy has brought along, cold and soulless and frightening. They are strong and numerous and mighty.
You have fought automatons before, but never this many. Never so many so strong.
You and your legion are not alone. The other Thunder Warrior Legions have come, as have the younger Space Marines. Even the Custodians.
You do not like either the Marines or the Custodians very much, but their help is useful, you can't deny.
But as another day dawns, and another battle begins, you aren't sure if you can win even with their help.
The Golden Man himself is what you need, as much as you hate to admit it.
You only hope he comes soon, as you and your comrades plunge into the frenzy of blood and war. Hordes of monsters attack you, and iron soldiers open fire on you with weapons that spit blue lightning. The air is filled with the smell of blood and molten iron, the sky is turning a bloody crimson and the land beneath you is turning to ash.
Because if he doesn't, you may very well lose this war.
Author's Note: Short, but it gets the point across, I think.
Canonically, the leaders of the Thunder Warrior Legions are called Primarchs, but I changed that to Legates because I didn't want to mix them up with the actual Primarchs.
Invite code for my Discord for anyone interested: DYKRFBM3