Legal Disclaimer

Warhammer 40,000 and all characters, creations, organizations, and locations pertaining there-to are the exclusive property of Games Workshop. Use of said characters, creations, organizations and locations fall under the aegis of Fair Use and are neither intended nor unintentional generating profit or revenue for the Author.

Author Disclaimer

Typically I would have opted for a M (Mature) rating for this story, but given that it is perhaps more tame in all regards save sexuality than my other work I have decided to experiement with a T (Teen) rating. The story contains contextual and thematic elements that may not be suitable to all audiences. This book is set in a science fiction universe but covers matters of human interactions and relationships that may not be acceptable to all readers. Language and graphic descriptions of violence are common and if this type of writing disturbs you or is unsuitable for viewing by you or your child(ren)/spouse(s)/dependent(s), please do not open this work. This work is replete with refrences and allusions to romantic relationship and human sexuality as part of the natural process of human socialization and may contain strong sexual content and descriptions there-of. Refrences to suicide, drug use, alcoholism, religion, and politics are also contained here-in. If any of these subject matters are offensive or inappropriate to either yourself or your child(ren)/spouse(s)/dependent(s) please do not view my work as I will not be held responsible for posting material you may view as inappropriate after you elected to open and read it. If for any reason you find the material in this story beyond what should be allowable to a T rated story, please contact me and I will revert the rating to the original M.

Setting Disclaimer

Events in this story occur in a universe where the pre-knowledge of Horus' Heresy allows events to be altered to transpire in a different way and the strange course events take when the Emperor himself falls to the Ruinous Powers.

Viewing Disclaimer

This is the last one...I promise. This work is best viewed at 1/2 justification. You know, those goofy little links at the top right corner of the page opposite the genre/title link bar. Seriously...I mean it, this definetly reads better at 1/2, but don't let me force you.

[Excerpt]

"Traitor." He spat, his wan face drawn, eyes ringed with crusted rheum and the virulent red of sleeplessness. The master of man-kind, the Emperor, the being on whom the hopes and dreams of the unnumbered trillions of humanity rested stood hunched, his body wracked with the corruption he had wrought on himself.

"Betrayer." He screeched, leveling the tip of his sword at Dorn. The orange flames of judgement replaced now with crackling wisps of the immaterium, each seeming to scream and gibber as they flashed into this realm only to snap with a palpable resonance as they slipped out of existence only to reform again down the length of the blade.

"I condemn you! I condemn you all, you are no sons of mine! You never were, you were devices of my will, mine to expend as I saw fit, the mistake of your creation ends today!" He raised his other hand, the bladed fingers of the lightning claw caked in some indeterminate ichor and with an ululating scream he cast a ripple of eldritch ruin at his seventh son.

It never reached him, he felt the power of his brothers wash over him, like a wave passing a submerged stone, the rush of power cut by his form only to strike against that which barreled back at him.

"Father, let us save you!" Horus cried, his voice choked with sobs, the tears painting his face.

"This is not the way father!" The Angel spoke, his wings shuttering in his grief.

Magnus, Lorgar, Russ, and the Khan channeled their powers as a ward, their combined might, forged in brotherhood and purpose was too great even for their father, the greatest Psyker of his race, perhaps even of all the races. But theirs was the might of weaker sons, sons that had learned from a father's blows how to turn a sword, a punch, a kick. They were son's made hard by their father's own designs, strengthened by his harsh expectations, perhaps even in spite of them. These four pulled the very forces of the immaterium as their father wielded them, turning them to beat back his own might.

Rogal stared at the man…the being…the transcendent intelligence he had once called father, he had once loved and adored and could only feel pity, soul quaking sorrow for what he had become. So mighty was he, so beyond the confines of the temporal mind that he had truly fallen victim to his hubris, the pathos of the whole affair was not lost on Rogal. "Father, you have become what you sought to destroy, what you hated most."

"Silence!"

"Look into your soul, father, see that this is the wrong path, a path of woe and destruction." Dorn was not cowed; he would speak the truth to him, for in it there was still one last chance to save him.

"Hear him, father!" The great smith, the aspect of the Salamander, Vulcan called out clearly over his own tears, "No son has loved you, has been as loyal to you as Rogal!"

"We know you are better than this, that you can overcome this darkness, listen to Rogal's words, father!" Perturabo shed no tears of his own, but his face was masked with sorrow.

The Emperor howled, his howl becoming a scream, the scream becoming something more as they all felt him ripping power directly from the ruinous ones, their pain as he drew strength from his four thralls echoing in the materium and immaterium at once. Then he charged…

And eight brothers watched as they waited for the ninth of their number to be struck down.

Eight brothers prepared to see the one some had called the finest among them, the one that had brought them together die.

The ninth brother, the builder, the occasional brotherly rival of the tenth waited to see the most precious friend die at the hands of their erstwhile father.

Horus, Sanguinius, Magnus the Red, Lorgar Aurelian, Vulcan, Leman Russ, Jagatai Khan, Angron, and Perturabo felt in that moment that the world would end, for without Dorn this brotherhood was incomplete and in their grief they too would die, for no fury or indignation would spring from the well of sorrow with enough might to overcome the darkness of what their father had become. In years to come, centuries, millennia, their other brothers would fall sway to their father's wickedness or be purged themselves. Darkness would spread across the galaxy, and in the grim dark of the far future there would be only death. The darkness seemed to fold in, to enshroud, stealing the very color from their sight and the warmth from their blood, and sapped their bones of strength.

But then a flash of gold shattered the pallid darkness, and the shining beacon of Inwit, the blade of the seventh, Storm's Teeth flashed, and through the screams and weeping and moans of a galaxy lost, the roar of a motor and buzz of teethed chains came high and piercing. As in all things, Rogal stood with stark stolidity, he motions a study of speed and economy, and the hooked talons of the mighty chain sword of the Primarch bit into the edge of the Emperor's blade. As a tower sways gently with a buffeting wind, as a pier or levee parts a crashing wave, as a roof turns away rain or snow, so too did Rogal Dorn turn the Emperors blade, away and back and forward from its original source to penetrate the tarnished armor of the fallen Lord of Mankind. He hadn't even lifted a foot, his arms moved but a few feet in a stroke that would have just as easily befit a neophyte, his back remained straight as the master's blow was reversed with no more effort or regard than if the Primarch had been shooing an offending insect.

And in that moment, all the foulness, all the wickedness, all the hate and deceit and avarice born of the hearts of men vanished from the Ageless Lord, and for but a moment he shone once again as an Icon of Humanity before he began to fall. He never touched the ground though, for in that moment as he began the plummet to the stone he was in his son's arms, and Rogal gently lowered him, resting their father, restored in mind, to his bent knee.

"Rogal!" The Emperor cried out in sudden pain and despair.

"I am here, father."

"Why?" The voice was already weak, the life of his body evacuating more of dissipating spirit than leaking blood.

"This is not what you wanted, father, not what you believed, you allowed yourself to be blinded." Dorn replied, his voice now seeming so much stronger, so much more imperious, riven with conviction but also with his strangely understated affection.

The hands came seconds later, the gauntlets and colors of those most true of his sons coming to rest on him, these nine sons who would save him from himself, that would have humanity from him. The man he had once been, the dreams he had once held, most personified in these eight, the sons that were truest to him, to his beliefs, to his ideals, the sons he did not deserve.

"Rest, father…" Angron declared, the fierceness of the Red Angel momentarily replaced with something that seemed loving, kind, at peace.

"You have strove long enough, father." Sanguinius echoed.

Horus continued to weep as he held his hand tenderly. Vulcan smiled softly down at him, Perturabo fought against his grief with his anguished face. Magnus, Lorgar, Leman, and the Khan all rested their hands on him with eyes closed, faces solemn; tears trailing from their closed eyes. In Rogal's eyes he saw the shine of tears un-spilled, but in them was a twinkle, a sort of mischief, a foreknowledge that was impossible to fathom, immune to probing, a knowledge the turned stoic sorrow into quiet joy.

"Rest…you will rest father. You will rest and one day be reborn, and when the day comes, and your mind has been cleaned of the sorrows and the worry and the terrible responsibility, we will once again come before you, and you shall be our father and lord again, and your dreams shall be completed."

He closed his eyes and spilled his own tears, he did not deserve such unquestioning love, he did not deserve such sons…for truly these were his sons, the greatest of mankind, perfection that had occurred in spite of his interference rather than because of it. "Yes…I will rest…and I will dream, and when I return, I hope to be more worthy of you, my sons."

And then he was still, and the spirit did not leave the room, did not fade away, it just receded as wakefulness does from the mind.

For a moment, a great spirit of lament came across them, even Dorn, and a wail stood ready to be loosed from the mouths of the six who did not grasp the threads of the immaterium, and the four sorcerous brothers opened their eyes, and Magnus smiled for he knew, he felt, he saw spirited amid the planes, woven into the threads of the warp, their father slept, at peace, warm, contented.

"Father sleeps."

Vulcan closed his own eyes, a bitter-sweet smile on his ebon face, "And he will return, when I cannot say, but he will as sure as dawn comes."

The body became as dust, the corpse flit away as ashes in a breeze for it was no longer needed. And then they all felt it, the sleeping mind, the presence of their father beyond the grasp of the mortal or the immortal, the physical or the spirit, lulled in the waves of eternity for the future they would build for him. The brothers began to embrace each other, laughing through tears. Their bonds of blood and comradeship would make a bright future possible; nothing that could await them was insurmountable for they had truly saved their father's soul.

[!-Author's Note-!]

This is an excerpt of the material from the overall story, it will span the 11 millennia of the Warhammer 40k setting with an emphasis on the Primarchs. If you have no interest in this story I will, unfortunately, be uploading it anyway as that is the nature of a vanity project, which is what fan fiction truly is. If you are interested in the story and progression, please bear with the fact I have several other works that will be absorbing most of my free-time between normal life obligations. Just a warning now, I am a huge Rogal Dorn fanboi and I don't think he gets enough fictional depictions that aren't Sigismund and/or Kurze slashfics. There will be strong themes of familial affection and camaraderie in this story, but please realize now that nothing regarding the closeness between the Primarchs in this story is meant to be in any way lemony...despite a lemon being a mighty fruit. ITEHATTSD jokes will be kept to an absolute minimum, even though Bruva Alfa is a living saint.