The situation inside the ship was complex. The enemy numbered in the thousands, all Chaos Space Marines.
Among them were hundreds of familiar faces. Hundreds of the loyalists had found their counterparts, their fallen, Chaos-corrupted selves.
"Impossible! You damned traitors! This is all a scheme of the Chaos Gods."
"These are lies, all lies! You will not corrupt us!"
"Despicable Chaos Daemons, despicable Chaos Gods," the Golden Legion warriors who faced their fallen counterparts roared with fury.
Like the others before them, they were filled with disgust for these twisted, Chaos-warped versions of themselves.
"We are the ones who find this strange," the Chaos Champion Khârn said, "To be brought to this place out of nowhere and see a group of... pure versions of ourselves. This is clearly not our reality."
Honestly, if he could defeat his loyalist counterpart, he would not hesitate to kill him. The problem was, he could not.
He suspected the others were in much the same situation. Although their combat experience might be more extensive, their counterparts' wargear and physical attributes were clearly superior. That ability to move instantaneously, it seemed like a form of phase teleportation, similar to Necron technology. And that other ability, the one where their hair turned gold and their bodies erupted in a fiery, golden aura, was simply monstrous. He had been taken out in a single exchange moments ago.
"The Chaos Gods sent you to help me," Lorgar said, approaching the Chaos Champion Khârn, "We must find a way out of here. The plan has failed, and we need to escape and rendezvous with Horus."
The only purpose these newcomers served was to help him escape.
Khârn the Betrayer snorted, casting a sidelong glance at Lorgar. The Lorgar of this universe did not seem very impressive either.
"Fallen traitors," Captain Khârn of the Golden Legion declare, "You are not going anywhere. I will kill every last one of you here. Your very existence taints the honor of the Golden Legion."
"Captain Khârn is right," another Golden Legion Captain spoke up, "You twisted, fallen bastards are not going anywhere. Just wait here for your death. It is the only fitting end for you."
"Hahaha! Killing me will not be so easy," the Chaos Champion Khârn taunted, "But I am quite curious about your gene-seed. This golden transformation of yours, it must come from the gene-seed, correct?"
An escape was absolutely necessary; it was something Chaos Space Marines were exceedingly good at.
But before they left, he needed to find a way to kill a few of these Golden Legion warriors. The golden transformation had to originate from their gene-seed, and Chaos Space Marines never refused a new source of power.
It did not matter if the gene-seed came from loyalists, traitors, or another universe entirely. As long as it could make them stronger, they would take it.
Though he could not defeat his counterpart, dealing with some of their lesser soldiers would be no problem.
The Chaos Champion Khârn planned to kill one or two of the Astarts in the ensuing chaos, steal their gene-seed, and flee. He had no interest in helping this reality's Horus.
He and his brothers had already followed Angron into that disaster ten thousand years ago, and it had all been for nothing. Now that he was here and had found a new path to greater power, he would seize it.
As tensions reached a breaking point, the surviving Word Bearers quietly gathered behind Lorgar. Khârn the Betrayer keenly observed that the Golden Legion warriors, though enraged, maintained a strict tactical formation as they faced off against their own kind.
These warriors would be difficult to handle. Perhaps he would let the Word Bearers lead the charge. Chaos Space Marines felt no collective honor; all that mattered was his own survival. Close allies and sworn brothers could all be sacrificed.
Truthfully, he held no great fondness for the Word Bearers' Primarch, Lorgar. His old friend Argel Tal had been murdered by Erebus, and though Khârn had attacked Erebus for it, nearly killing him before the sorcerer escaped with a Chaos spell, the grudge remained.
For years, whenever he encountered Word Bearers, he would slaughter them without hesitation and offer their blood to the Blood God.
"Prepare to break out," Khârn the Betrayer commanded in the tongue of Chaos. His blood-red eyes fixed on his shining golden counterpart, a savage grin spreading across his face.
He hurled a Chaos-rune bomb.
A blinding flash of purple-black light instantly enveloped the chamber. The Golden Legion warriors immediately activated their phase-shift devices, but a few of the newer recruits were a fraction too slow.
The Word Bearers also charged forward, their goal clear: to break through the encirclement.
"Now!" Khârn the Betrayer roared, charging the nearest Golden Legion Astarte, the Chaos runes on his power axe glowing with a terrifying crimson light.
His target was clear: the gene-seed repository in the warrior's neck. At that moment, Khârn the Betrayer wanted nothing more than to claim one of Axis's gene-seeds for himself.
Captain Khârn roared, his golden aura flaring.
He moved with incredible speed to intercept his Chaos counterpart. The two power axes crashed together, erupting in a blinding shower of energy.
"You will not succeed!" Captain Khârn yelled, his entire body blazing with a golden aura. With a surge of strength, he drove Khârn the Betrayer back once more.
However, this played directly into the Chaos Space Marines' strategy. With the Golden Legion's attention drawn, dozens of veteran Chaos warriors suddenly charged in different directions, all choosing the younger-looking Golden Legionnaires as their targets.
These veterans, honed by ten thousand years of war, had a sharp eye.
They could distinguish a veteran from a recruit in a crowd with a single glance. But even the Golden Legion's neophytes could use a two-to-threefold transformation. Their inherent strength was not necessarily less than that of a Chaos Space Marine; they only lacked some combat experience.
"For the great Blood God! Kill them!" one Chaos warrior, his body covered in bone spurs, laughed maniacally as he lunged at an isolated neophyte.
Just as his chainsword was about to reach the loyalist's throat, a flash of gold appeared.
"My phase-shift is not just for show," the Golden Legion warrior said coldly.
His power sword had already pierced the Chaos Marine's chest. He scoffed internally. Your combat experience might be vast, but I am no pushover.
But to the neophyte's surprise, the Chaos Marine let out a wicked grin and gripped the sword blade.
His mouth opened wide, revealing a parasitic daemon within. The daemon's arm lashed out, swiping a blade across the neophyte's thyroid region and snatching the gene-seed from within.
"Careful next time you fight a Chaos Space Marine, boy," the Chaos veteran cackle, "We are friends with daemons. Sometimes, they even take up residence inside of us."
The wounded Golden Legionnaire clutched his neck and stumbled back, glaring with rage at the veteran who had tricked him. A damn bastard with a daemon living in his mouth. Several veterans instantly pulled him back into formation.
An Apothecary rushed forward to treat the wound, applying a special device to his neck to staunch the bleeding. Thanks to the Fruit of the Tree of Might, the vitality of Axis's gene-seed was exceptionally strong. Unless their heart was destroyed or their head was severed, a mere slash to the neck was a minor injury.
The Chaos warrior who had secured the gene-seed immediately brought it to Khârn the Betrayer and handed it over.
"A perfect gene-seed. It is beautiful to behold. If we could sacrifice a few hundred of these, we could likely all become Chaos Champions," one Chaos Marine mused.
"No, no," said another, "With a gene-seed this perfect, the Chaos Gods would surely reward us with ascension to Daemon Prince."
"So that's it. You want our father's gene-seed," Captain Khârn said with a cold sneer, "You are deluded."
Others might not know the truth about their Father, but he certainly did. His Primarch was the absolute bane of the Warp, and his Ki energy had a powerful resistance to its influence.
Furthermore, without the Legion's special method of activation using Ki, implanting Lord Axis's gene-seed would result in certain death.
Khârn the Betrayer let out a cold laugh, preparing to retreat.
Chaos Space Marines did not need to capture enemy ships to escape. They only needed to tear open a rift into the Warp and flee. The Immaterium was their home.
The entire battlefield descended into chaos.
The Word Bearers, led by Lorgar, seized the opportunity and made a frantic dash for the nearest transport bay. Khârn led his World Eaters in a fighting retreat, with some warriors deliberately self-destructing to sow more confusion while the Golden Legion moved to encircle and intercept them.
"Do not let them escape!" Captain Khârn commanded in a rage.
Just then, a flash of golden light appeared.
A man, roughly the same size as an ordinary Space Marine and with a mane of spiky, upturned golden hair, materialized before Khârn the Betrayer.
"Quite interesting," Axis said to the Chaos Champion, a cold smile on his face, "I have some questions for you. Will you surrender peacefully, or must I break all your limbs first?"
Parallel universes, he thought.
This was getting more and more interesting. It seemed the four meddlers of Chaos were more capable than he had imagined.
...
..
.
ps?