The moment the two girls appeared, Hilda—herself a potent psyker—felt a pressure that defied description. It was an abyss, a psychic void capable of devouring light, sound, and the very essence of the soul.
The laboratory was instantly plunged into a zero-gravity state. Severed cables and rusted wreckage rose from the floor, drifting in a silent, ghostly dance. The Vigilance Fortress, which had weathered ten thousand years of radioactive sandstorms, let out a mournful metallic groan, its very foundations buckling under the weight of an invisible force.
The Fallen were warriors of the First Legion. Their mental fortitude was legendary, forged in the fires of the Great Crusade. Even as the gravity field threatened to liquefy their organs, they stubbornly refused to collapse, their ceramite boots grinding into the deck plating.
"Kneel."
The older girl's azure eyes seemed to hold the weight of an endless ocean. For a moment, it felt as though the sky above Vigilus was collapsing into the room.
Thud. Thud.
Dozens of Fallen Angels, including Commander Olsen, were driven to the floor. Their knees slammed into the reinforced plasteel with bone-shattering force. Their ancient power armor, designed to withstand tank fire, felt as flimsy as parchment before the will of a high-grade psyker.
Had she wished it, the girl could have crushed every warrior in the room into a pulp in the span of a single heartbeat.
Olsen, pinned to the floor with sweat pouring down his scarred face, stared up in absolute horror. He looked at the two young girls in their simple dresses—clean-faced and unassuming—who stood beside the Rogue Trader.
He was a veteran of the First Legion. He knew the classifications. These were not mere sanctioned psykers. This was something far more dangerous. To see a Beta-plus and an Assignment: Alpha psyker standing in the same room was a harbinger of extinction.
Tactics, numbers, and bolters meant nothing; if an Alpha-grade psyker suffered even a moment of emotional instability, the entire hive—perhaps the entire planet—could be annihilated.
"Do I need to end them?" Gabriel asked, tilting her head with a curious, detached expression. She slowly extended her hand, her slender fingers beginning to curl.
The surrounding space wailed. Faint, hideous cracks appeared in the air—tears in the fabric of reality itself—as a tidal wave of empyrean energy converged on her palm.
Olsen felt his senses stripped away. His sight, hearing, and touch vanished as he was dragged toward the threshold of a psychic black hole.
Is this it? he wondered. Crushed like an insect by a girl who hasn't seen twenty winters?
To defeat a psyker of this magnitude usually required the combined efforts of multiple Chapters, Sisters of Silence, and orbital bombardment. To let one get this close was a death sentence.
In that final moment, Olsen's life flashed before him. He saw the day his brotherhood was branded "Fallen," the millennia of running, the injustice of a schism they never asked for. They had wanted the truth. They had wanted their glory back. They had wanted to return to the Lion's side and rekindle their faith in the Emperor.
But the years had turned that hope into a bitter, jagged resentment. Why us? he had asked for ten thousand years. They had never intended to betray, yet they were hunted like wild dogs by their own brothers.
Now, it was over. Olsen closed his eyes, preparing for the void. He felt a strange sense of relief. No more running. No more fear of the Dark Angels. No more dreaming of Asmodai's rack.
"That's enough, Gabriel," Emrys' voice broke through the silence.
The Rogue Trader reached out and gently ruffled the girl's hair. "Do not kill them. They still have value to me."
The crushing pressure vanished instantly.
Olsen's senses slammed back into his body. He gasped for air, his heart hammering against his ribs as he collapsed forward. He was alive.
"Why?" Olsen rasped, looking up at Emrys with a hollow expression. "Why spare us?"
"Are you disappointed?" Emrys crouched down in front of the half-kneeling commander. "As I said, I don't believe you turned to Chaos out of desire. You turned out of desperation. And since your pact with Abaddon hasn't cost any Imperial lives yet... you are still worth saving."
Emrys had pieced together the truth of this warband. They weren't the arch-traitors who had followed Luther into madness; they were a group caught in the crossfire of the First Legion's paranoid purges, driven to the edge by the Unforgiven's relentless secrecy.
Olsen let out a self-deprecating laugh. "Value? We are Fallen. We are a stain on the galaxy. There is no forgiveness for us."
"Is that so?" Emrys leaned in, whispering into Olsen's ear. "I know someone who can grant you exactly that."
Olsen shook his head. "Impossible. Unless the Emperor Himself descends from the Golden Throne to walk among men again, we are damned."
"Don't be so pessimistic," Emrys murmured, his voice dropping even lower. "What if I told you that your gene-father, Lion El'Jonson, will soon awaken from his ten-thousand-year slumber? What if I told you he would be the one to judge the Fallen—and to forgive those who remained true in their hearts?"
The world seemed to go silent for Olsen. He stared at Emrys with eyes wide with shock. "What... what did you say? The Lion... returns?"
"Shhh." Emrys raised a finger to his lips. "Whether you believe me is irrelevant. But I am offering you a choice: swear your blades to me.
Undertake a Crusade of Atonement.
Cleanse the stain of your intended betrayal by defending Vigilus against the Black Legion. Earn back your glory in the shadows so that when the Lion returns, you can stand before him as warriors, not cowards."
"A Crusade of Atonement..." Olsen whispered.
He knew the cost. It was a sentence of death. They would fight the most horrific enemies of the Imperium without support, without resupply, and without names. They would be convicts in power armor, serving until they fell.
Many would die. Most would never see that promised "forgiveness."
But a spark of the old First Legion fire ignited in Olsen's eyes. He saw a path that didn't involve kneeling to Abaddon. He saw a way to die with his sword in his hand and the Emperor's name on his lips.
Olsen looked at his brothers, then back to Emrys. He struck his breastplate in a crisp, military salute.
"We accept," Olsen declared, his voice ringing with newfound resolve. "We swear the oath. We will undertake the Crusade of Atonement!"
The path ahead was paved with blood and certain death. But for the first time in ten thousand years, the Fallen had something more precious than life.
They had hope.