"Father!"
Little Horus.
Horus Aximand, Captain of the 5th Company.
He stepped forward, his strides heavy. He was younger than Abaddon, but the fiery rage burning in his eyes was every bit as intense.
"These people are traitors!"
His voice exploded across the command deck.
"How dare they impersonate the Emperor? How dare they call their dirt-ball Holy Terra? And the absolute gall to demand our surrender..."
He raised his right fist, slamming his gauntlet against his breastplate with a resounding metallic clang.
"I say we launch an immediate assault! Let these imposters taste the true wrath of the Emperor!"
Abaddon immediately backed him up, his voice even darker and more menacing than Aximand's.
"Father, I second the motion."
"This is an insult to the Emperor and a blatant provocation against the Imperium. We must handle this with absolute finality… wipe this planet off the star charts entirely."
Tarik Torgaddon and Hastur Sejanus remained silent.
The Mournival. Two for war, two withholding judgment.
They were all waiting on Horus. The moment the Warmaster nodded, the thousands of warships in the 63rd Expeditionary Fleet would unleash hell on the planet below.
But Horus didn't nod.
His amber eyes simply remained locked on the holographic star chart.
Staring at that blue-green world.
Watching those pilgrims groveling before a golden statue.
His fingers lightly tapped the armrest of his throne twice.
It was a small, quiet gesture, but it instantly plunged the entire command center back into absolute silence.
Everyone was waiting.
Waiting for the Warmaster's verdict.
Meanwhile, tucked away in a corner of the room, a young man dressed in the uniform of an Imperial logistics officer kept his head down, his fingers flying across his hololithic console as if he couldn't care less about what was happening.
But the moment he ducked his head, his mouth twitched in a slight sneer.
He was busy cursing them out in his head.
Abaddon and Little Horus... totally living up to their future traitor status.
Their first instinct is always to just blow things up. No wonder they end up embracing Chaos.
He mentally reviewed all the Warhammer lore he'd read back in the real world.
Abaddon: the future Warmaster of Chaos, the architect of countless Black Crusades, responsible for the deaths of trillions.
Aximand: one of the Warmaster's most trusted sons, a core instigator of the Horus Heresy, who would ultimately be decapitated during the Siege of Terra by Garviel Loken—the current Captain of the 10th Company.
And yet, here they were, throwing a righteous fit and demanding blood in the name of the Emperor's honor.
Give it a few years, and they'd be screaming "Death to the False Emperor" while charging the Imperial Palace alongside hordes of daemons.
He glanced up slightly, his eyes tracing the blue-green planet on the hologram.
The Second Terra. The Second Emperor.
He silently repeated those words. In Warhammer 30k lore, this was the exact starting point of Horus's fall from grace.
According to official GW canon, this was an ancient human colony that had gotten lost due to a navigational error, cutting them off from the rest of the Imperium for millennia. Under the subtle guidance of the Chaos Gods, they forgot the real Terra and convinced themselves that their little colony was the cradle of humanity.
And their ruler...
A man who had completely molded himself into a shadow of the true Emperor.
This would be the first time Chaos bared its fangs to the Imperium and Horus in a major way.
Because hiding behind that 'Emperor' was something deeply sinister.
[I Will Make the Gods Witness the Apocalypse] typed a casual message into the [Light of the Emperor] regional channel:
"Alright boys, the main plot is starting."
"Second Terra."
"The Second Emperor."
"And... the first official on-screen appearance of a Chaos daemon."
"Which means our front-row seats to the actual Horus Heresy are right around the corner."
The channel went quiet for a single second.
And then it completely blew up.
[The Emperor's Will is Unstoppable]: "Holy shit?!"
"Second Terra?"
"The place the Big Four set up specifically to screw with Horus's head?"
[Loken Did Not Betray the Luna Wolves]: "First Chaos spawn?! They're really kicking off the main event!"
[Thirty Years a Centaur Gold Ring]: "Brothers, prepare for battle! We're witnessing actual history here!"
[I Don't Eat Bear Biscuits]: "Wait, the real issue here is... we're literally embedded in the Warmaster's fleet right now?"
"Are we about to spectate the beginning of Horus's corruption in real-time?"
[The Emperor's Will is Unstoppable]: "Fuck, when you put it like that, I'm actually getting kind of hyped."
[Loken Did Not Betray the Luna Wolves]: "Hyped my ass! We're Imperial players! We need to figure out a way to stop this!"
[Thirty Years a Centaur Gold Ring]: "Do you seriously think a bunch of low-level scrubs like us can stop the Warmaster from falling to Chaos?"
[I Don't Eat Bear Biscuits]: "Even if we can't stop it, we have to try! What, are we just gonna sit here and watch Horus get corrupted?"
The channel devolved into a massive argument.
But [I Will Make the Gods Witness the Apocalypse] didn't join the shouting match.
He just kept his head down, quietly typing away at his console.
A complex web of emotions flickered in his eyes.
Stop it?
How the hell were they supposed to stop it?
This was a trap the Chaos Gods had been weaving for countless millennia.
This was destiny. A fate sealed the very moment the Emperor handed the title of Warmaster to Horus.