Resurrected after ten millennia, Ogon utilized his masterful shifting abilities to shed his Verminlord form, reverting once more to a human visage. His ergence from the Warp was not marked by cataclysmic thunder, but possessed the quiet insignificance of a wanderer stepping out from the shadows.
"As I foresaw, the Empire is exactly as the prophecies foretold, and my progeny are scattered to the winds." Ogon stood upon a remote, unfamiliar world. Looking up, he saw the dark firmant erupting with flashes of light, like stars tearing themselves apart.
Though he could not see the orbital engagents from the surface, he followed the psychic pull of his weapon. He could feel his sons up there, embroiled in the fray.
Ogon glanced around the panicked spaceport and began walking toward a departing vessel.
High above in the void…
The Serpent's Teeth, a warband of the Alpha Legion, had been cornered by the Silver Templars, a Chapter born of the Ultima Founding. Composed almost entirely of Primaris Space Marines, the Templars had delivered a brutal surprise to the Serpent's Teeth the mont the engagent began.
In the face of a Primaris boarding action, not a single Alpha Legionnaire could hold the line. They were being driven back, deck by bloody deck.
"I am Lampros Hekaton, Grand Oathkeeper of the Silver Templars! Your end is at hand, traitors!"
The Captain of the Silver Templars' Fifth Company roared, leading an entire company onto the Serpent's Teeth's flagship. His power sword carved a path as his warriors clashed with the two hundred remaining Alpha Legionnaires.
Drazus Jate, Lord of the Serpent's Teeth and Harrowmaster, watched the onslaught from beneath his helm. His expression was grim. The Imperium was rarely known for innovation, but when they finally changed their ways, they had truly brought forth a monster.
"Do not panic! Fight a holding action—fall back! This deck is not our grave!" Drazus shouted.
Ten thousand years ago, he had followed his gene-father to Pluto for that final, fatal duel. He had seen the Primarch cut down by Rogal Dorn, yet he had also seen a mysterious figure spirited away the body.
Though the Legion had been consud by fury and many had shunned him for his obsession, Drazus had maintained a strange premonition. He felt it in his very marrow, a sense that his gene-father was not dead, that their father would return.
Drazus raised his power axe to parry the strike of a Primaris Marine, but the newcor was stronger, faster, and more relentless. In an instant, the ten-thousand-year veteran was overwheld by the superior physical specs of the Primaris. Lampros delivered a crushing kick to Drazus's midsection, sending him sprawling across the deck.
In the cramped confines of the ship's corridors, the Alpha Legion's nurical advantage was negated, and the battlefield was not one suited to their preferred thods of subterfuge.
Mortal auxiliary forces were boarding alongside the Silver Templars, systematically compressing the Twentieth Legion's living space.
"By the Primarch, Jate, let us retreat! We need to study these new enemies before we engage them again!" an Alpha Legionnaire with dark skin and braided hair shouted over the vox.
Despite being utterly outmatched, Drazus remained steadfast. "No, Akurra! I can feel it. The sacred mont is approaching. He is here. We cannot retreat!"
Solomon Akurra, the warband's second-in-command, felt his blood boil. He cursed Drazus, screaming about how many setbacks the warband had suffered over the years due to Drazus's delusional obsessions.
"Drazus, I am begging you, lead the retreat. There will be other battlefields, other supplies to seize. This 'opportunity' is a fignt of your imagination! If we even survive this, I doubt the warband will allow you to remain Harrowmaster!" Akurra roared in desperation.
The Warband Lord's stubbornness was absolute, even as the situation grew dire with the arrival of Rogal Dorn Battle Tanks and Chiras providing fire support for the boarders. As a cell built for espionage, the Serpent's Teeth had started with only two hundred mbers; now, barely a hundred remained. The mortal soldiers ford a protective ring around the silver giants of the Adeptus Astartes, creating a wall of fire the Alpha Legion could not break.
"Where is your witch?" Drazus bellowed. "We need to push through them!"
"We need to run!" Akurra cried out. "By the Primarch, Jate, you're going to kill us all!"
At that mont, a civilian transport, seemingly out of control, slamd into the hull of the warship. The impact sent a shudder through the deck, causing a sniper shot that would have pulverized Drazus's head to veer wide.
"It's here… I can feel it! The mont of destiny! The fruit of ten thousand years!" Drazus scread, ignoring the silver giants closing in on him.
"Have you lost your mind, traitor? Fine, I shall be the one to end your madness," a Silver Templar muttered, leveling his bolt rifle.
"It is a sorrowful sight, my sons."
A voice rang out, plain, heavy, and unmistakably masculine. It wasn't loud, yet it cut through the din of bolter fire and screaming engines.
A bald man wearing the scarred plate of the Alpha Legion stepped from the far end of the corridor. He looked like any other Legionnaire, yet his presence commanded a gravitas that was chillingly different.
"Who is that?" Akurra asked, ducking behind the chassis of a wrecked Chira.
As a "younger" warrior of only two centuries, Akurra did not recognize his gene-father. But Drazus trembled. Despite the man's unremarkable appearance, the instinct buried within his very genetic code scread the truth.
"Just another traitor waiting for the Emperor's Justice!" The Silver Templars were unimpressed. One turned his lta-gun toward the newcor and fired.
Bizarrely, the man moved before the trigger was even pulled. His speed was staggering; he was a blur of motion that closed the distance in a heartbeat.
The Astra Militarum tried to halt the strange traitor with a wall of las-fire, but the man, wielding nothing but a scavenged chainsword, cut through the ranks faster than a bullet.
The Imperial firing line, which a dozen Alpha Legionnaires couldn't even dent monts ago, collapsed instantly.
This stranger moved with a fluidity and violence that put even the Primaris to sha. The silver giants, who had dominated the Alpha Legion just minutes prior, were now being butchered like children by an old master.
"Who is he? Since when did we have a warrior of that caliber?" the other Alpha Legionnaires whispered in awe.
"Fall back! Sothing is wrong!" The Silver Templars finally realized the anomaly. As a successor of the Ultramarines, they were no fools; recognizing the unnatural threat, they sounded the retreat. They still had a planet to protect.
Finally, as the mysterious warrior stood amidst a mounting pile of corpses, the battlefield fell silent.
The surviving Alpha Legionnaires, Akurra included, approached cautiously. They intended to ask this powerful "friend" which cell he belonged to and if he had any interest in joining the Serpent's Teeth.
But then, Drazus Jate, Harrowmaster, hit the deck with a heavy thud. He crawled on his knees toward the man standing among the dead, his voice cracking with an intensity that bordered on tears.
"By the Primarch! Father… Gene-father of our soul! You have finally returned to us!!"
"What??!!"
At this earth-shattering proclamation, the surviving Astartes of the Alpha Legion froze, looking at the expressionless Ogon as if they were witnessing a miracle of the gods.
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