Two weeks later a windstorm swung through the city, its razor winds sent the burnt standards and banners fluttering, at least those that had survived the scorching.
The scorching was the name Heylel had given to the event that turned this city into a burned wasteland.
He still didn't know what the event was or where he was but there was progress—the banners, the ornamentation, they puzzled together a story. But Heylel couldn't figure out which pieces fit where, he just eyed out the nine different banners that he had laid out in front of him.
A relatively intact Imperial Aquila took its place at the centre of his history project. A half-burned banner of—if he remembered correctly—War Hounds, below it, forming a circle around the Aquila was the standard of Dusk Raiders, following that of the Emperor's Children.
But that was not all, Luna Wolves, not Black Legion, the standards of the Luna Wolves were scattered all around the city, he had found one in good condition and that was what was sitting in front of him. There were many other banners beside these, but Heylel couldn't make sense of them.
All of this meant one thing, wherever he was used to a battleground pre-heresy where the Space Marines had fought against some threat, probably in defence of this city. If so, what enemy?
With a sigh, he pulled his eyes off it all and stood up, the patchwork of scavenged armour that now covered his skin shifted up with him.
Sending one last pulse to his systems, he checked everything, especially the armour systems he had grafted on.
They all came back green, just like the previous five times he had checked—that made him feel ridiculous.
A paranoid maniac. He sighed. But just the sight in front of him reminded him that he was in 40k and if Machine Spirits were a thing then this might not even be enough, even more so, given that even the microchips in his armour had forty different sources.
His concerns over the unproven Machine Spirits aside, he pulled his hand to the metal barrel he had attached to the bottom of his backpack and extracted a reserve power cell from it, but it did not come out alone, it had a plasma converter attached to it.
With a wave of singles sent to the convertor, he tossed it over his collection of banners. And seconds later, the cell melted into a molten surge of plasma, scorching all it touched, the banners, the floor all of it. All of it into molten slag. A fate shared by his coffin.
As pulled out two more, it was to be the fate shared by the piles of dismantled Astartes armour a few feet behind the melting banners.
He tossed them. It took a second before the cells erupted, and the metal below them began to melt, the slag dripped down from one husk to another and before it managed to cool, Heylel tossed in two more and so the melting continued, till it reached to bottom.
The sight in front of him reminded him of a funeral pyre.
A blue-white, screeching pyre.
These men had laid down their lives to defend those who couldn't, something Heylel couldn't understand, not the machine him, not even the human him.
But these people had died for strangers, people they would never know, it was…respectable. And so, out of respect, the machine stayed and watched as the processions came to a molten end. A funeral without a grave.
No, he laughed. Of course, there was a grave.
This building.
This city.
And if his worst calculations stand true this whole planet.
All of it, just a grave.
After all, which planet is so silent? What world does not have waves of communication riding on different frequencies? A dead world. A stagnant world where life has perished.
But he is alive and so, he has no place here.
His legs turn him about to the sight of black dust and soot rising high into the sky carried by the wind.
A man walking in those conditions would choke on his breath and die of air poisoning.
But him? He couldn't care less walking through the winding alleys, and the curving roads till he reached the city gate.
Where to go?
Eyes going through his memories reach the faded map of the garrison quarters, it answers his question, the Planetary Capital, the Governor's Palace.
A three-day walk. Seventy-two hours nonstop.
Still, he set off.
Through the charred wastes of the planet, past the husk of broken war machines and more scattered armour, he walked.
On the first day, he crossed the lowlands that lead up to the city he was in, there was a column of broken tanks, their turrets ripped off and thrown callously to the side. He tried to scavenge them but the boxy things had been exposed to the elements for too long.
The only thing they were worth was the scrap and the bits of fuel he could symphony, even then, he was hesitant to burn that fuel in his reactor so he let it go.
On the dawn of the second day, he crossed what was supposed to be a forest according to the map, yet it had all decayed into just a barren burnt land. It again sparked the question, what had happened here?
By the end of the third day, he reached a military garrison, except it was just a scar on the earth, a tear in the crust.
Only being able to speculate on what had occurred here, and what he was missing, he moved on.
His misadventures had tacked on another day onto his schedule, so when the crumbling walls of the capital caught his eyes—he could only hope that at least an FTL Drive had survived, or maybe a schematic, either of those would save him.
His drive determined and his will strong he moved in, past the city gates, yet he froze at the first sight of the innards.
It was a city. Was. The ground mourned an atrocity so vile even the Machine in Heylel could hear the cry.
The earth beneath his feet was glass, the heat of whatever had butchered this city was so calamitous that even the dirt was not spared.
This whole idea looked to be a bust, but he was here already. So he moved forward and as he did, the rubble around him piled higher, he was in the heart of the city, so maybe this was the governor's palace. He couldn't tell, though it hardly mattered, it was all rubble now.
As he carried forward, his eyes stopped on one thing, the cracked earth. It was open, like a gaping wound torn into the very flesh of his planet. But unlike every other wound on this blasted hellscape, his one felt still bleeding.
It was subtle, the patterns of a leg a gigantic leg of some limping giant in the dirty ash.
The first signs of life he had seen.
He took it, switching his eyes to infrared he jumped down into the wound. And then he saw it, the fair hum of reactors, not dormant ones, but ones still running.
With one last breath, he moved, cutting a straight line towards the humming. Passing by high arches that sprawled into a complex. Not big but not insignificant. What was this? Why was this underneath a city?
More than that, it had survived the thing that turned the city above him into a cruel memorial.
So, what was this?
Who knows. He would just have to ask the occupant or his machines, whichever worked. Propelled by his thoughts his right arm gripped the Bolter hanging off his waist, ready to put a few missiles into the opponent if things turned violent.
His roadway curved, taking turns as they led him deeper and deeper, past the negative impressions of leftover flak armour left by the scorching on the walls.
And minutes later he was finally there, bursting into his sensors was a ship, a starship…yet, if the piles of rubble were anything to go by it was not going to work—the ruptured hull, the fuselage skewered by the metal beam. Even then! There had to be a drive in there that he could study!
"You are here," Instantaneously power flushed into his limbs. When he turned to face the voice his Bolter was already pointed there.
Except it was not there. It was still calling. Heylel hesitated, but with a sigh, this craft was his best hope and he was going to kill whatever it was here if it didn't let him have it.
But as he rounded around the corner, all his intentions faded. He knew where he was, Isstvan III. A corpse.
After all, there was only one sane Dreadnaught who bore the Golden Aquila over his purple sarcophagus. Rylanor.
Stepping over the mass of wires beneath him, Heylel looked at the machine working, its claws of faded gold turned the wires attached to the virus bomb with great patience, even as the Dreadnought lay crippled with his legs missing and a deep bite taken out of the superstructure.
At that moment Heylel could only answer, "Yes. But I don't think I received any call."
The machine, the man, didn't care, "So long I have waited. So, long." He said, "Forgot Names. Forgot Bothers. Only Vengeance sustains me."
Right, Heylel nodded, his mind racing till he decided on his Modus Operandi, "Can you give me your name, old one?"
"I am…he who remembers." It said, still not even a glance. Heylel could see it about to go into a spell so he said his getting before it could, "Heylel,"
"Which Legion?" The claws continued to turn.
"None." Its claws stopped as it finally heard something worth considering asking, "I have lost much but not my sight, not yet. I see your armour."
Briefly Heylel thought to lie, to make up a story but would it get past Rylanor? He sees through all deception, but even then, that was against humans, he was a machine, would he be caught? No, no point in risking it.
"No lies. I woke up in a coffin in the middle of a city. Scavenged it all and slowly made my way here." Heylel said, walking forward towards it.
"I see no deception in your words…yet I do not understand. Explain."
"I am a man-turned-machine. My hibernation protocols were terminated a few weeks back," His words fell on Rylanor and momentarily he forgot vengeance. An impossible existence had just walked up to him.
For once in ten thousand years Rylanor didn't know what to do, no, he had to confirm one thing. Its assault cannons swung towards the approaching machine, ready to end it if what he thought was true, "Are you one of the Men of Iron?"
Without hesitation, Heylel answered, "I am not. A machine spirit maybe. Men of iron? No."
Again, no evasion, the canons pulled down, "Do you know what has happened to the Imperium?"
"Horus is dead, but traitors failed. But the state of the Imperium is…decrepit," He paused for a second, "The Emperor is but a husk of his former self and all his sons are either lost, dead or traitors."
"I see. What is that you seek here Machine? You are not my query, take what you will and leave."
Heylel standing in front of him laughed a little, as he kicked his plan to motion, "I may not be human now, but I was human before. I want to help the Imperium." After all, if the Imperium fell, Chaos would win and that is a bad time for everyone.
Rylanor however was confused, "Take what you need and leave. I do not see how you would help from here."
Heylel pulled his hand to the claws holding the bomb, "I am taking you."
"What?"
"The Imperium more than ever needs he who remembers." The Dreadnaught's hull moved, its optical sensors matching Heylel's, "For you to say that…what has happened to our Imperium?"
Finally, Heylel had the ancient's full attention.
[A/N: Second Chapter done, I would appreciate any feedback. Also, man Rylanor is so hard to right it is crazy. If I did him dirty do tell.]