Betraying the Imperium and turning to the Ruinous Powers—it was a sin that should have been unforgivable. Yet, for this particular brotherhood, the pact had not yet been sealed. There was still a flickering spark of hope for their souls.
If it weren't for the fact that many of the Fallen were victims of circumstance—warriors unfairly branded with the stain of treason and hunted across the stars for ten millennia for a schism they barely understood—Emrys would not have offered this chance. This warband was not composed of the most depraved heretics. Had they truly wished to embrace Chaos, they would have knelt before the Dark Gods long ago.
It was only the crushing weight of the eternal hunt that had finally driven them to consider Abaddon's offer. Logically, they were still salvageable. But Emrys' offer was not purely altruistic; he needed a hidden blade, and a brotherhood of ancient, embittered Space Marines was the perfect weapon.
"What did you say?"
Olsen stared at Emrys as if the Rogue Trader had lost his mind. He barked a cold, harsh laugh. "Boy, if two psykers were enough to wipe us out, we would have been dust ten thousand years ago."
The bolter barrels around them didn't waver. Hilda instantly flared her psychic power, weaving a shimmering kinetic barrier around herself and Emrys. Even so, her precognition was screaming. There was a greater threat lurking in the gloom than simple bolter fire.
"Psykers are a nuisance, true," Olsen said, enunciating each word with practiced malice. "But do you truly believe that the First Legion, the Emperor's own blade, went into the dark without our own masters of the Warp?"
The ground began to groan.
The air grew heavy, saturated with the coppery tang of ozone and the pressure of a gathering storm. Psychic waves surged from the shadows like a tidal bore, violent and relentless.
"Emrys... we're in trouble," Hilda whispered, her hands trembling as she gripped her blade.
From the darkness, a figure in massive, bone-white Terminator plate emerged. The armor was ancient, covered in warding runes that glowed with a sickly violet light. He moved with the slow, unstoppable momentum of a heavy tank.
"A Librarian?" Emrys narrowed his eyes. "And a high-ranking one at that. To have a warrior of this caliber among the Fallen... no wonder you've evaded the Interrogators for so long."
The psychic pressure radiating from the Terminator-Librarian was staggering. Emrys estimated him to be an Alpha-plus grade psyker—a peer to Hilda's own formidable power.
"Your bodyguard is impressive," Olsen said, noting Hilda's strain. "But tell me... where is your confidence now? How do you intend to 'wipe us out' when your only protection is being crushed by the weight of a Master Librarian?"
Emrys didn't look cowed. Instead, he began to clap slowly, the sound echoing hollowly in the vaulted chamber. "Truly impressive. A Chief Librarian of the old Legion. You've maintained your strength well."
Space Marine Librarians were more than just weapons; they were the navigators of fate, capable of telepathic communication and far-reaching precognition. With such a master in their ranks, it was clear how this warband had stayed one step ahead of the Dark Angels' vengeance.
"But you haven't answered my question, Commander Olsen," Emrys said, his tone shifting from admiration to a cold, razor-edged judgment. "Have you truly decided to betray your oaths? To spit upon the memory of your gene-father and the Emperor you once served?"
The words were like poisoned daggers. Blood, pain, and ten thousand years of resentment boiled over in Olsen's mind. He let out a roar like a wounded beast.
"SHUT YOUR MOUTH!"
"Am I wrong?" Emrys pressed, his voice cutting through Olsen's fury. "The moment you sign that pact with Abaddon, you are no longer Dark Angels. You are not even Fallen. You are nothing but Chaos scum. Traitors to the core."
"WHAT DO YOU KNOW OF US?!"
Olsen ripped off his helm, revealing an aged, weathered face covered in deep scars and framed by thin white hair. His eyes were bloodshot, burning with a frantic, desperate light.
"It was not us who betrayed our faith! It was not us who turned our backs on the Lion or the Emperor! We fought for the Imperium for our entire lives, only to be hunted by our own brothers! We have lived as rats in the walls of the galaxy for ten millennia! What was our crime?!"
Olsen lunged forward, his face inches from Emrys' visor.
"Honor? Glory? Those were stripped from us long ago! We are the nameless, the Unforgiven, the ghosts of a dead age! You cannot imagine the agony of being hunted by the very men you once called brothers!"
His voice broke into a deranged snarl.
"If the Imperium offers us nothing but the rack and the pyre, then we will give it fire in return! We will have our revenge, even if we have to burn the stars to get it!"
"I understand," Emrys said softly. It wasn't the answer of a loyalist, but it was the answer of a man driven to the edge of madness by grief. There was still something to save here.
Lion El'Jonson's return would eventually settle the matter of the First Legion's schism, but for now, Emrys had to handle the crisis in front of him. These weren't monsters—they were desperate men.
"I am offering you a path out of the shadows, Olsen," Emrys said. "A chance to stop running. A crusade of atonement that ends not in the hands of an Interrogator, but in absolution."
"Do you think I am a fool?" Olsen sneered. "We hold the advantage. We kill you, we take the Void Claw, and we take our revenge."
"Is that so?" Emrys tilted his head, a strange, knowing smile playing on his lips. "I think you should look at the room again before you commit to that."
Olsen was about to retort when his breath caught. Two figures had appeared beside Emrys as if they had stepped through the air itself.
Before he could even process their presence, the Master Librarian beside him collapsed to his knees. The ground beneath the Terminator's feet shattered as if struck by a falling moon. Gravity itself seemed to have turned into a physical hammer.
The Librarian struggled to move, his ancient, reinforced plate groaning and beginning to buckle under an impossible weight. He looked up at the two new arrivals, his optics flickering with terror.
"Alpha..." he gasped, the word strangled by the pressure. "Alpha... Plus!"