Some part of him wondered where he had gone wrong in life, he didn't think he had been too bad of a person in his previous life. Sure he was an asshole and a weeb, but that's like fifty percent of the male population at least. Sure maybe he had kicked one too many puppies in some forgotten previous life, or maybe he was actually hitler reborn, but other than that he couldn't see any reason for his current life situation.

It had all started when he had been reborn, you know the whole shtick, infinite darkness, tight wetness, and then suddenly you're crying and looking up at your smiling mothers face and you realize you're a baby again. Honestly I shouldn't have been surprised by the whole sequence of events given the amount of times I had both written and read it, but it didn't make the whole experience any less jarring. Unlike your average gary stu self insert however my mother wasn't smiling at me.

In fact she wasn't even breathing as far as I could tell in those first few moments of my new life. Her face was ashen, her eyes dull, and her body was near skeletal in a way that told me she had been malnourished her entire life. She had likely died in the middle of my birth, I never did figure it out, and I really didn't care because in the next moment while my eyes were locked on my mothers dead form I felt myself leave the ground as large hands cradled me in a soft embrace.

He spoke words that I couldn't understand, but the gentleness alone was enough to comfort me as the man who was to be my father walked away from the husk that was once my mother and gave me my first look at the world that I had been born into. Gothic architecture rose high into the air, smog filled the sky, and the sun was a bleak red splotch on the painted sky. Skulls lined the walls, and gold could be seen decorating the highest towers in a vain mockery of prosperity.

In those moments after my birth I knew where I had been reborn, a hiveworld in the Imperium, likely as one of the lowest dregs of society that barely got through the day to day grind that made up life in the dying corpse of humanities interstellar Empire. It was a mind numbingly horrifying place to wake up in, but the warm hands of my father kept me safe in those early days even as I cried, and cried, and cried until I had nothing left in my small body to give.

I should have died then, with no mother to feed me, and a father who didn't have the money to raise a child and pay for an alternative to breast milk. But I didn't die, because my father refused to see me wither away like my mother had. Months passed by and every day he would leave for hours on end to work, and at the end of every day he would come home to me, worn and beaten carrying another singular bottle of milk and two loaves of bread. One loaf for the night and another for the morning.

I never loved another man like I loved my father, because even after I grew from a newborn to a toddler he never once gave up on me, my frame was frail and sickly, my body malnourished and barely functioning off a diet of milk and half a loaf of bread, and every day he came home to me more exhausted than I thought a man could ever be after sixteen hours of work and smiled at me. We talked about a lot in those days, mainly it was my day we talked about, how I was slowly learning my letters and numbers(Though I had no issue with learning the Imperial numerical system), what me and the other kids played, and how I had done my chores just like he had asked me too. I tried my best to be the best son I could for this man that loved me so much.

He died. It was my tenth birthday when I got the news that an accident had happened in the factory he worked in. At first I thought he was fine, the accident happened in a section completely opposite the one he worked in after all, but then he didn't come home that first night. I couldn't sleep as I waited for him, praying to the God-Emperor that he was just late and he would arrive in just another few minutes, just a few more minutes and he would walk into our small home with a smile on his face, and our food in his hands.

I cried when I realized he wouldn't ever be back, I broke down in that moment as the weight of the world that I had been born into crashed down upon me. My body seized as cries racked my body, his name was Raynald and he was my father. My true father, the source of all my happiness in those early days, and even now at the age of eighteen after years on the streets, fighting, bleeding, and nearly dying to survive, I find myself crying on lonely nights as I remember his face.

"Weider stop daydreaming and get your ass over here, we got orders from higher. I don't need your fracking daydreaming ass getting me chewed out because you can't focus on the present for more than eight seconds." My Sergeant yelled at me, I snapped out of the haze of memories that had overtaken my mind and back to the present. I had joined the local guard when I turned sixteen to escape the streets and the last two years of my life had been spent slowly climbing the ranks.

It had been a long and hard process, especially with my body being as malnourished as it was, but the Guard could be counted on for one thing at least, and that was making sure you were fed. Just don't ask what the food was or where it had come from. After two years I was close to being a sergeant myself, but my current leadership refused to promote me due to quote "Suicidal and dangerous behavior." Honestly they were overreacting, I only charged a group of heretics once! There were only five of them!

"Moving Sargent, you ain't gotta yell at me." I tried my best not to give him a middle finger when he rolled his eyes as the rest of my squad formed up behind him, with me at his left hand side as the most senior guardsmen present. "So what's higher got us doing this time sargent, sweeping the acid rain? Scraping grox shit for some dumbass ceremony?" A small snort from my Sergeant was the only indication that my joke had landed, and it was the only response I got from the man as we continued walking through the hive.

Why exactly are we walking through a hive you may ask? That's a good question, you see our leadership had decided it was a good idea to volunteer our regiment for garrison duty in the city itself, instead of our usual rota along either the walls or in the rural areas of Ulanir, that's the planet's name by the way. So while higher sat with the lesser nobles of the hive wining and dining themselves I and the rest of the grunts got the fun job of patrolling the streets of hive Balefir. We did fun stuff like breaking up food riots, crushing minor cults and heretical uprisings, and risking our lives on the daily to ensure order remained prevalent across the hive. Of course thats a lot easier said than done. Because while the average regiment in the guard could range from 500,000 to a million guardsmen it simply wasn't enough to make sure a hive with over twenty billion people was in good order.

So higher made yet another great decision and decided to have single squads of ten guardsmen patrolling entire blocks of the hive, blocks that could house up to a million people each. Needless to say hundreds of squads had gone missing or been outright killed while on patrol with no reinforcements able to reach them in time. You can see why I'm not exactly thrilled to hear that higher had need of my squad specifically, because usually that meant you were about to be sent on some suicide mission that would have no actual positive impact beyond slowing down the decay that infested the Imperium.

But there was nothing I could do about that, instead I walked, kept vigilant, and for the next three hours tried to entertain myself in any way I could until we reached the local HQ. I wasn't prepared for the sight that greeted me. The building was destroyed, bodies littered the area, and the charred remains of people hung from the smoking ruin that had once been our headquarters. "What the frack…" My Sergeants eyes were wide as he stared at the scene in front of his trying to decipher just what he was looking at.

The crack of a lasrifle filled the air and suddenly his head was missing and my face was covered in the mans brains. That was my cue to hit the ground. "SNIPER!" My scream was enough to knock the rest of my squad out of their daze as they rushed for any cover they could find, only for three more of them to be killed as las bolts rained down all around us. Staying still is death in combat, so I was quick to roll into cover and peek around from the side of the building I had been lucky enough to have been standing by.

The sniper was spraying away in the direction of my squad, another two of which had died without ever getting a shot off while the final five had found cover of their own. "Katuyshi!" My scream rang out above the din of battle as the rest of my squad began wildly returning fire, the man in question looked up from his position to acknowledge me. "Suppress that fracking sniper! Use your grenades if you have to! I'm gonna flank the bastard, don't leave this position unless absolutely necessary!" The man pounded his chest in acknowledgement and turned to take control of the remainder of our squad. He was efficient like that and I was glad that he had survived the initial ambush.

I waited for them to open up on the sniper's position before I began moving, and as soon as I heard to wail of bolts increase exponentially I knew it was time for me to move as I circled the building that I had been hiding behind and tried to get a look at the sniper. It took a second for me to find him amongst the wreckage, but eventually I did see him after I noticed the flash of his rifle from one of the windows.

Before my body and instincts could object I rushed the building, breaching like I had been taught, and how I had done a thousand times before. Instincts honed over a hundred battles with rioters and heretics kicked in as I rapidly cleared the building's lower floor before rushing the stairs. Before I went up to them however, I pulled out the singular grenade I had been issued and tossed it onto the upper floor, if there was a hostile up there he wouldn't catch me with a lucky shot.

My instincts were confirmed true a second later as screams followed the bang from my frak, in the next second I was rushing up as fast as my legs would carry me, with my rifle at the ready. What met me was a scene straight out of a horror movie, three men lay on the ground, two of them were dead with their limbs shredded, while a final man lay screaming with a chunk of his face blown off. I gave him the Emperor's mercy without hesitation.

The pulsing wail of bolts hadn't stopped however, my target still lived and while he was alive my Sergeant and soldiers remained unavenged. Without even a final glance behind me I advanced to the door I could hear the las fire from and waited. While the average rifle could support 500 to 750 bolts before it needed to switch out its power pack, the high power and high rate of fire from this one told me that he likely had far less shots than that before he would have to reload. I just had to wait until I heard the click.

Those few minutes felt like an eternity as I left my men to be fired upon by the sniper, and I hoped beyond hope that none of them had been killed in the time that I had been waiting for him to reload. Thankfully my hunch was right and soon enough the fire from inside stopped, and I could hear the faint click as the rifle went dry and the follow up curse from the man as he obviously went to reload. That's when I slammed through the door and was met with the man who had killed half my squad.

He was ugly, malformed and misshapen, a mutant and a freak that shouldn't have ever left his mothers womb. He was also holding a detonator in his hand and the room around him was kitted out with enough ordnance to destroy three Leman russes. His smile was evil, and as the click of the detonator was the last thing I heard before pain overtook me.

However before my consciousness could fade completely I saw it. The Message that would change my life forevermore.

HOST LIFESIGNS FALLING
CONTRACT BREACH IMMINENT
[OVERRIDE]
CONTRACT CONDITIONS FULFILLED
RETURNING MEMORIES

10%
17%
29%
59%
78%
88%
91%
95%
99%
100%

CONGRATULATIONS YOU HAVE COMPLETED YOUR IMPOSED EARLY CHALLENGES
ALL MEMORIES RETURNED
ABILITY [FEY FORM] GRANTED!

GOOD LUCK HOST AND HAVE FUN!