Apothecary Logaan looks down over the beam of light illuminating the twisted black chunks laid out on the laboratory research table. He, the chief geneticist, and a half dozen other mortals and astartes peer at the remnants of the creature killed literally just outside their door.

"Are you seeing any sub-dermal bonding layer at all?" chief geneticist Leaura Evance asks, her sharp black hair trailing wispy bangs in her face as she stares from behind a magnocular faceplate armature.

"Nothing, it seamlessly transitions between organic and inorganic like they'd already undergone a molecular weld." One of her sub-orderlies says while picking away with an adamantium probe and its digi-auspex.

"And we're sure that's the undersuit mesh?" Evance asks, shooting a cursory glance at Logaan, one of two legion representatives present.

The astartes still couldn't move his re-attached arm very well, but he was here for moments like this. "Positive. You can see the adamantium monofiliment lines here and here. It's layered precisely like the flexsteel undersuit should be."

"I agree," a sonorous voice intones from a spot just behind Evance. With a little whir of servos, one of the legion's Forge Masters impassively peers over the geneticists shoulder. Logaan hadn't caught his name. "It's layered in a diamond pattern, and shares all the properties expected of a flexsteel undersuit. There's no cross-hatch weave like the Konor variants, it's too dense to be Imperial army, and it's not laced with psychoreactive crystal filament of Prosperine issue."

"It could be a thermal bra." Evance says, no trace of humor but the twinkle in her visible eye.

Ordrad Hermies, the Byzant Janizars chief field surgeon distastefully looks down his aquiline nose at her. "Is it really the time for jokes, doctor?" He was a tall, humorless man, with a noticeable hump that only made him twice as sinister owing to the plethora of grafted cybernetics.

"It's the time for answers, but I don't have any of those. So I figured a joke would suffice." Evance sniffs and squints before adjusting the armature limb and flicking another refractory lens over the eyepiece.

"I would have hoped a professional silence in the absence of information would suffice." Doctor Hermies says and looks at the rest of the surgical teams illuminated by the overhead lamps. "Servitor, focus a light on the subject's sinistro-posterior gastrocnemius."

"That explains why you spend so much of your time in the morgue." Evance replies, still picking away at the upper arm where a portion of flesh had been excised with a las-cutter.

"Forge master, Apothecary?," Hermies asks the two astartes as the servitor shines another overhead light on the specimen. It settles on the upper left calf of the creature where the armored plating melds seamlessly with tendons of mutated leathery flesh. "Is the cuisse plate and gastrocnemius muscle what you expect of a legion artifice? Could this be from molecular acid bonding?"

The forge master replies first, "It appears so, but will be difficult to say without a core sample. May we make a vertical incision here where the ligament meets the plate?"

Logaan nods, waiting for an overhead armature with a surgical saw to come down. With a whine, the rotating disc splits the back of the creature's leg open in a fine mist of ceramite dust, barely nicking the edge of the tendon before withdrawing. What's laid open makes both astartes exchange more than one wordless glance.

"Well, my lords?" Hermies asks as Evance continues to pick over the shoulder wound with evident amazement, along with two other fleet Biologis adepts.

"It's not molecular acid bonding. The Laramaan cells should have formed a hardened cyst around the site of the bond from rapid healing, and we're seeing no trauma or musculature deformation from external means." Logaan replies, stealing a glance at Evance.

"The plates are layered like any other power armor, with heat dissipation and neural linkage lines, but look at the cross-section here," the tech marine explains as he indicates the point of interest with a helmet mounted laser designator, "This was melded with the plate, like the muscle growth is a partial non-organic. And this isn't some manufactured joist or tooled splice, it's fused together like non-organic ablative layers... it's as if the entire plate kept its shape but was remade just in the immediate connecting area."

"So," Evance still doesn't look up from her fixation, "He couldn't have taken it off and he wasn't just entombed in this armor?"

"No," Logaan replies, squinting at the utterly mind-boggling implications, "It's like he was vat grown and factory pressed at the same time. I haven't got the damnedest idea about how this is possible, at least, not outside of some of the xeno races. The closest I can recall are the Megarachnid warriors and we still don't know how they were bioengineered. I'm not Vaddon or a Primus Medicae, this is well outside my expertise."

Evance sighs, looking to Hermies and the others cluttered around the body, "We may need to tell the Commander we have to call in outside experts. I know you prefer silence in the absence of answers, Ordrad, but this shouldn't be possible. The monofilament undersuit mesh is actually inside what I can only call the osteodermus and, of course, the costaneural ceramite carapace and exo-ligament tissue... meaning I'm less comfortable calling this particular individual a homo sapien astartes than I am homo sapien astartes terrapin."

Hermies stares down his nose at her again, curling his lip in distaste. With a low sigh, he mutters, "Under no circumstances will we refer to them as 'turtle marines', Leaura."

Logaan's gaze hardens on the chief geneticist, who shrinks back at his steely glare. "I'm sorry, I just can't determine if this is some bio-weapon or even just an inherent defect in the seventeenth legion's geneseed. I've seen some," she clears her throat uncomfortably, "classified reports that have made reference to catastrophic physical deformation at the cellular level. But I wasn't privy to fifteenth legion records, either. There's just not enough information." She tries to direct some attention away from her own faux-pas.

"We're fortunate." Logaan quashes a mirthless smirk and looks up and across the operating table to the doors of the surgical theater. A muffled scream and snarl is only just detectable to his genhanced hearing. "We'll be getting a comparative sample from a donor soon enough."

Tap.
Tap.
Tap.

The metallic clink of a chisel etches the last names on the brass plate four meters up on the arch of victory. The names of countless thousands of legionnaires line the dozen arches like it. Above it all, the Eye of Terra watches over the memories of those lost in glory.

It was, at least, what had always been said.

The wide corridor is now lined in astartes garbed in full ceremonial battle plate. A thousand warriors in two serried ranks hold back the tide of humanity that had gathered to observe the latest names.

Horus Aximand knew different, the vultures weren't here to remember fallen legionnaires. No, they were here to gawk at the resurrected Warmaster, to bask and ease their worry that he wasn't gone. They were here for Horus Lupercal resplendent, beloved by all. They could care less about Gaskar Ayves, Soleum Tempaddon, Yves Kassar, or thirteen others of his company that were killed in the Delphos. They didn't care about the staggering loss of almost all of Lev Goshen's company, chief Apothecary Timmult Vaddon, or any of the three hundred and seventy eight names freshly scribbed on the epitaph. And here he stood, across the corridor at the head of the column under the pulsing light of a world in its death throes, while Horus Lupercal gathers his newest cabal.

Across from Aximand himself was the wounded Serghar Targost and Luc Sedirae. The former's gaze drifts, all but surely locking with his own despite the intervening helmet lens.

It said it all, 'later'.

For all the love and relief that surged through his veins, Aximand could only stare at the Warmaster's broad back and feel just as distant as when they had escorted his still form from the medicae to the embarkation deck. Clad in a purple velvet cloak hanging to the floor, he stood there in his pristine alabaster white armor crowned with the black pelt of an ancient Rougarou. But it wasn't him by Horus's side, though he still held a place of honor at the front of the column next to Yade Durso. No. Garviel Loken stood to the Warmaster's right with Tarik Torgaddon, to his left Iacton Qruze and Tybalt Marr. Each is adorned in the finery of their respective companies, each cloak a panoply of colours. The shock of adrenal anger slips away with the bitter tang of guilt and shame.

He suspected that he knew why he was here: his vote had been the deciding voice that had instigated this whole debacle.

With a final clank, the last bit finished the final name. The nameless swarthy skinned artisan distances himself from his work for a moment, gives the smallest nod, and lowers himself from the telescopic scaffolding. But the Lupercal wasn't done, not yet. Instead, he reaches into the folds of his great cloak to produce an intricate gold gilt scroll and a single adamantium chisel. On it were other names, one of which Aximand knew at once: Hektor Varvarus. There had to be something more to this. They would be commemorated elsewhere, they should be, but not on the arch dedicated to the legion's fallen.

It was impossible, it was-

“If I may, Gerult,” Horus's deep voice rumbling clearly through the silent hall, “your hammer.” he holds his hand outstretched, and with a surprised and mute nod, the man complies.

Taking the scroll, Horus turns, evidently breaking protocol as he looks over the crowd. He was still a luminous being, perfect in features to most, though Aximand can detect the slight pallor of his skin and pinch of gaunt cheeks.

“My friends, my sons: this is not just another moment of conquest among many. Nor is this a bitter-sweet triumph over an enemy forged from ignorance and steeled by arrogance. This is a moment of the gravest importance. This is a moment where the grey follows the flames. This is a moment of revelation: and I do not welcome it, for this is a moment of treason. ” The pause for emphasis was evident, and the mass of humanity begins to whisper while others stiffen.

Aximand catches the smell: a pong of human adrenal stink of sweat and nervousness. Horus strides back away from the new monument to stand between the two solid columns of green-plated Astartes in ceremonial battle dress. His voice rises from its resonant calm into a towering roar, “Treason against me! Treason against our bonds of fellowship! Treason against the very dream of a more perfect galaxy! And treason against all those who have come before us! Look at these walls, do you see them? Do you see these monuments?” He shakes the rolled up scroll for emphasis, jangling the spikes in his palm like a wind chime.

“They are all gone, all lost to the dust of history. We remember them because they wanted better! Better for us all, and this betrayal spits upon their legacy! Their trust! Their legacy! Their sacrifice! This-” he shakes the rolled up scroll for emphasis, his voice rising, “This is my pledge: an oath of moment that I make here, before all present! I pledge by my title of Warmaster, that I shall see Erebus of Colchis, First Chaplain of the seventeenth legion, dead at my feet for what he has done! The blood of the innocent and the loyal has never before been so callously spilled by an Astartes. I shall see this remembered, marked, and never forgotten! Nor any treachery to me, from without-” Aximand's neck prickles as cold golden eyes sweep over him with a gaze to quail a god and split stone, “Or within.”

He knows about the vote.

Horus neatly pins the golden scroll to the side of the newly etched names and maneuvers one of the adamantium bonding spikes against it. Then, with a visible scowl, he bares his teeth and strikes with the artificer hammer. It was the sound of a bell and a gavel both, driving half the spike's length in through the plaque, pinning the oath paper to the metal plate: now a visible marker on the memorial: the moment that vengeance was decreed by Horus Lupercal.

He looks to the crowd, and one parts the sea of humanity as if choreographed. Aximand was forced to admit, it probably was. The head of the Vengeful Spirit's terminator wardens steps forward in his full ceremonial regalia. In his arms and wound around his neck, is a brass chain that clinks and chimes at every step. Upon the chain are hung clusters of gleaming skulls too big to be that of mortal humans. No, they were astartes skulls.

Colchisian skulls dipped in silver.

The chieftain holds up the grisly Cthonic headsmen trophies to Horus as the primarch hammers in two more spikes. Taking the chain, he strings it in two loops across the archway, creating a clear dividing line. A manifestation of the split between them.

“Ancient myth says that there is misery in the knowledge of good and evil. Today we know this to be true. Let there be no more fond farewells to false friends, and no more squandered trust in the unworthy. Now we know them by their stripes and have tasted the fruit of their deceit. They think themselves justified by humiliation? They think themselves begrieved? I shall show them grief. I shall show them humiliation. I shall visit destruction upon them the likes of which they have never seen. I am Horus Lupercal, and I have spoken."

He hands the hammer back to the artisan who fumbles it from numbed fingers, then turns his back. Striding down the aisle between the lines of astartes, he gestures simply, “Come, my sons, we have a war to make upon a nest of vipers.”

Marr was behind him and to his left almost instantly, Loken, Torgaddon, Qruze all following a nearly imperceptible moment later. Left to the head of the column, no longer certain of his place, Aximand stares and watches as light from a dying world glints off the Warmaster's ivory armor.

The grey-black orb that was Davin looms large in the glassteel dome, bearing witness to the dedication of a new and terrible dawn. The once green planet flickers and flares with countless prickles of light as cyclonic bombs and incendiary munitions dapple the surface. Firefly flickers of drop pods and gunships streak from the silver-silhouettes of warships as ten thousand warriors of the legion and countless more, from army drop ships to the towering comets cast by titan landers, streak down to make planetfall.

Abaddon's ruination of Davin had begun the moment the first name had been added to the casualty list three days ago.

Unsure as to follow or remain, Aximand's spine stiffens as he tries to ignore the weighty feeling of a single silver coin with a crescent moon embossed on its surface. It hangs in a pouch on his left hip next to his pistol. It was the summons to a lodge meeting of the Silent Order. Their last.

The first touch on the hard ground resonates with the click of hooves. Every five seconds, a gentle rumble shivers through the ground with the rhythmic beat like the thrum of a world's heart. It's cool, grey, and mostly enclosed though the wisping winds echo hauntingly through ragged fissures in the ceiling. Shafts of light pour through, illuminating the world in stark pale white relief. Luna takes in a breath, tasting the iron on the breeze and smelling the faint stagnant pong of standing water. But there wasa
deadness to the world, like the heat was being slowly leached from her bones and her very vitality sapped into the nebulous gulf. Something wasn't 'wrong' but it didn't feel right, either. Her thoughts are broken by the distant howl reminiscent of the cry of a bird of prey, but part of her remembered the sound of roaring retrothrusters from a shared dream not so long ago.

Another clap of hooves precedes the drawing of a relieved breath. Luna turns, giving the slightly shaky Unicorn a hug and nodding for them both to head forward.

They were within some room, an artificial cavern, perhaps an ancient collapsing building. The floors were dusty and grime streaked, mildew clings to some low laying puddles, but moonlight from the twin orbs in the sky reflects a stark blue tinged dusk.

Sunset looks behind them, smiling lightly, “We really came through that?” Luna glances back at the glossy black silver mirror that made up the whole wall. It was like a polished block of black ice. Perfect... impossible with such a ruin as this.

“We really are here.” Sunset whispers and takes another breath before clearing her throat with a little cough that dissolves into a laugh. “I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm just... this is amazing.” she looks around and then up at the moon showing through the rift torn in the vaulted cavernous dome.

“Wait for but a moment, Sunset.”

Luna smiles, taking to wing and lifting up through the shaft of moonlight cast through the dark. She smiles, and with a last more energetic flap, slips through the fissure and into the breathy moonlit expanse.

The wind whines a doleful song as it pushes and pulls her along in its wild embrace. The smell of rust and sand wafts strongly with small motes of ash pushed across the moonlit expanse. She alights upon the peak of a small rocky mount, craggy grey basalt granite exposed in a rocky butte from a sea of shifting dunes. In the far distance she could see rocky ridges and monolithic mountain peaks. But not so far away is the blinking lights of a twisting maze of metal pipes and structures bearing a great non-pony skull illuminated by bright spotlights. Streaking away from them was a single fiery form, but for the moment it was them and only them.

Luna takes a deep breath and stares up at the twin-moons hanging so tantalizingly close to her. She smiles, closing her eyes and feeling the radiant light on her face. Before she could think to stop herself, she reaches out into the infinite void in the sea of dreams. It stretches out to the near infinite, a vast canvas raw and utterly massive. There are countless little sparks, and nebulae bands rather than a quiet waterfalls. And despite the swamps and quagmires that swallow some, there was something else. Something unthinkable and utterly magical. Among the little fireflies and glimmers in the dark, were dozens of lambent luminous glows as bright as her moon and a cold white sun.

She reaches out, taking a breath and letting her mind wander. Before she could think what it meant, she takes a whispers, "I am here."

'I know.'