The Luna Wolves?
There are Luna Wolves!?
On the bridge of the Vengeful Spirit, within every viewport, every combat deck, and every corridor of this once-glorious Gloriana-class battleship now fallen to corruption, the Chaos Space Marines and cultists—whether remnants of traitor legions or descendants of later apostate warbands—regardless of which Chaos god they served, all who retained some semblance of reason and clarity amid the madness noticed it.
From the energy storm that had torn through space and time above Cadia—what they mockingly called the 'Eye of the Corpse Emperor'—emerged rank upon rank of an unknown Imperial Navy fleet. At its center, surrounded as though by a host of stars around the moon, loomed a colossal, pale battleship so vast it blotted out the void.
Rumble—crash—clang—crack!
Massive grappling cables, glowing with molten brilliance, fired outward and latched onto the Vengeful Spirit. Their heated impact pierced the warship's ancient adamantium hull, long since twisted and corrupted, eliciting vile screams and curses from the daemon-infested machine-spirit within.
Throughout the ship's corridors echoed the wails of its dead crew and the howls of warp-spawned abominations.
Beep—beep—beep—beep...
Harsh warning tones resounded within the ship's darkened guts. Red lights flashed across the auspex screens, frantic icons pulsing as servitors babbled in glitching binary: "...Report#—Error#—Detected C-4 section#—Lower deck breach##—Enemy boarding! Enemy boarding!##—A-2 combat deck compromised—"
Clang—grind—groan—
The tortured sound of metal twisting filled the air. The deck beneath their feet, the walls surrounding them, even the ship's keel trembled and wailed like a wounded beast. Yet none aboard were distracted.
Even the followers of Khorne with their Butcher's Nails, irritated by the static-ridden shrieks of malfunctioning servitors, tore the machines apart in rage—just to silence them and focus.
Because what appeared before them in the flickering blue light of the tactical hololith was a sight beyond reason.
A towering figure clad in platinum-gold serpent-scale armor—The Serpent's Scales—wielding the Talon of Horus and the Worldbreaker warhammer, his shoulders draped with the great gray-white pelt of a winter wolf. Upon his chest, a crimson aquila entwined with a wolf's head and golden lightning gleamed beneath a flawless, unblemished face.
And… a smooth, unscarred head.
No mark of Chaos's blessing. No cursed runes or glowing daemonic circuitry. No cables piercing the skull.
Everything about him radiated harmony, authority, and brilliance.
This—this was the Wolf King.
This was the true Warmaster.
As the Wolf-God declared judgment upon the stars and the heretics who had defied him, the countless veterans of the Black Legion—the former Sons of Horus—froze where they stood.
The Warmaster, their Primarch, Horus Lupercal, had returned.
The thought was unthinkable.
How could it be true?
"Warmaster…"
They stared wide-eyed at the image of the Wolf-God before them.
As the ancient war cry of their legion declared—We return.
The Warmaster had indeed returned—but now, he stood on the opposite side.
Aeons of war, endless slaughter, patricide without remorse—betrayal, corruption, numbness. They had thought their resolve was as unyielding as adamantium, that nothing could stir the ashes of their dead faith.
But now, when their gene-father Horus appeared before them once more—unchained by corruption, radiant in the Emperor's light, leading their loyalist kin in judgment—the cracks began to form.
"Fake! It's fake! This is the Corpse Emperor's sorcery!"
"Why—why, Father!? You live! Why have you abandoned us!?"
"Was the Great Crusade ten thousand years ago a lie!? Were we nothing but flawed tools to be cast aside!?"
There might have been many questions yet to ask—but none could wait any longer.
Being a traitor is not easy. Every moment demands unrelenting vigilance. Even with the superhuman minds of Space Marines, who could usually navigate such lives with ease, if the timing and weight of a single strike were precise enough, even they could crumble in despair like mortal believers.
In truth, the bond between a Primarch and his sons—the Space Marines—ran far deeper than simple loyalty or reverence. Their dependence, their love for their gene-fathers, was such that, in some cases, they were even more fragile than ordinary humans.
Some laughed madly to the skies. Others roared in anger. Some Black Legion veterans spat endless curses toward Horus, while others, overcome by fury, pulled their triggers and fired wildly—aiming at nothing, simply venting their rage.
But Selene's Luna Wolves would not grant them the time to recover.
Click!
Amidst the clanking and locking of mechanical gears, the massive boarding cables that had pierced the battleship's hull deployed their claws, tearing open the chamber between decks.
In an instant, black and silver wolves—warriors of the Luna Wolves—surged forth like a pale tidal wave from the boarding lines.
In precise formation, they crossed molten decks and cascades of liquefied metal, striking directly at their enemies who were still struggling to regroup.
"In Selene's name—! Luna Wolves, engage the enemy without mercy!"
"Slay these inferior impostors!"
Every Luna Wolf's vox channel erupted simultaneously in a thunderous battle cry.
Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!
A storm of gunfire tore through the corridors. Energy weapons screamed, and bolters roared in furious harmony. There would be no mercy—no survivors. Those aboard this cursed ship were all the damned—Chaos filth, and nothing else.
The thick stench of blood and sweat mixed in the air, choking and vile.
"For the True Gods! Abaddon fights a hundred batt—"
A mortal cultist officer tried to rally his defense line, but his words were cut short as a 1.25-caliber mass-reactive shell found him. The crude layers of armor plating he'd scavenged offered no protection; his body exploded into a spray of blood and bone.
The hallways ran red with gore. Chunks of flesh and splattered brain matter painted the walls, mingling with the putrid biological growths that lined the corrupted corridors. Within the storm of gunfire, mortal crewmen and cultists were torn apart—reduced to mangled heaps of meat.
"Cough… cough…"
A half-dead Word Bearer lay slumped in a corner, half his body burned away by a melta blast.
"Foolish… Luna Wolves? You're only lying to yourselves. The Luna Wolves are gone—dead on Isstvan long ago."
He lifted his head. His face was half-melted, one eye reduced to gelatin, the other swollen and bloodshot. Torn skin and exposed bone mingled grotesquely with a warped skull that had sprouted half a horn.
"My brothers… believe me… The slaves of your rotting Corpse-Emperor will never remember the honor of the Luna Wolves. They only remember Horus's betrayal. Only Chaos is the true—"
Szzk!
"Pathetic 'truth.'"
With disdain in his tone, a Luna Wolf centurion slashed his lightning claw through the heretic's neck. The unbreakable talons sliced cleanly through flesh and vertebrae, exposing a grotesque, tumor-ridden windpipe as blood spurted down his metallic claws. The headless body slumped to the floor.
Flicking the blood from his lightning claws, the centurion turned his gaze toward the defiled chamber before him—a grotesque altar piled high with bones and flesh. Beneath his visor, disgust flickered in his eyes.
This Word Bearer Dark Apostle squad, who had captured Imperial citizens and Astra Militarum soldiers for sacrificial rites upon the lower decks of the Vengeful Spirit, were utterly without honor.
Though the Luna Wolves' boarding force had annihilated them within moments, the desecrated shrine they left behind was enough to sicken even the hardened Luna Wolves.
"Continue the advance—purge the operation zone!"
...
Vwooom!
On the mid-deck, a crimson proton beam cannon roared through the Chaos Berserkers' line—a squad of Khorne-worshipping maniacs attempting to hold the blast doors. Dozens of blood-maddened warriors were vaporized, their bodies flung into the air and disintegrated mid-flight. Fragments of ceramite rained down like steel hail.
Clatter—clang!
"For Selene!" (in the Sacred Selene Empire's lingua franca)
"Bah! Dogs of the False Emperor!" (in Low Gothic)
They could not understand what the enemy's effeminate voices were shouting, but that hardly mattered—their rage burned all the same.
Bzzzt—
Half-kneeling, a Khorne Berserker blessed by the prayers of the Word Bearers' Dark Apostles let out a feral roar, as though an addict freshly dosed. Every nerve in his body sang in ecstasy as his senses reached the limits of madness.
Thick, molten warp energy gathered around him as his body swelled, his form twisting further into monstrous bestiality. Brass and sulfur dripped from his fanged maw like molten lava.
"Blood for the Blood God! Skulls for the—urk!"
Before he could even finish his cry, the raging madman leapt from cover, charging at the advancing Luna Wolf Terminators with a roar—and then, nothing.
A torrent of blazing energy weapons and roaring bolters swallowed him whole. His blood vaporized into a drifting red mist.
He was gone—completely vaporized.
Against the Luna Wolves of Selene, armed to the teeth with bolters, flamers, meltas, plasma, and energy cannons—wealthy beyond reason—no sermon from the Word Bearers could save them.
Seeing this, the Chaos Warlord hiding behind an adamantium support wall nearly exploded in fury.
A renegade Astartes himself, he had never fought such a humiliating battle. When had the Imperium ever outnumbered them? Since when had Chaos been the side overwhelmed by Imperial might?
Now, before him stood thousands upon thousands of enemy Astartes. He wanted to file a formal complaint with his consort within the Terran Administratum—someone was clearly violating the Codex Astartes!
"Cowards! Hiding behind your numbers—what honor is that!? If you have even a shred of pride, I challenge your commander to single combat!"
Sching—!
At his words, the Luna Wolves' commanding centurion chuckled, pulling his master-crafted power sword from the throat of a howling Noise Marine. With a twist of his wrist, he deflected a salvo of incoming shots from nearby Chaos Marines.
"Weak! Pathetic!" he barked. "Is that all? You call yourselves Astartes? Who authorized your gene-seed? You're worse than raw recruits still learning to use their new bodies!"
He even slashed a few bolter shells midair for emphasis. Then, raising his left hand, he roared:
Crack—BOOM!
The massive, spiked power maul in his right hand swept in a brutal arc. Crimson disintegration fields flared as the blow exploded through the enemy line, splattering ceramite, flesh, and blood into a storm of shattered bone and gore.
He didn't advance further. Instead, he signaled calmly: "Heavy support squad—saturate the target zone."
The Luna Wolves' Terminator heavy weapons squad obeyed instantly.
In a blinding flash, their weapons unleashed a searing plasma barrage. A 30-meter corridor ahead was engulfed in blue-white flames as molten plasma consumed the adamantium bulkheads and blast doors.
...
The Vengeful Spirit's engines were crippled, and its teleportation arrays destroyed. The enemy hadn't even bothered attacking its void shields—they had simply employed a boarding tactic once favored by the World Eaters: direct, brutal, ship-to-ship assault.
The speed and scale of the Imperial reinforcements to Cadia were beyond anything they had imagined.
Everyone knew the truth now—unless the fallen Primarchs lurking deep within the Eye of Terror appeared with their legions, the fall of the Vengeful Spirit, symbol of the Black Legion, was inevitable.
"Ezekyle Abaddon… you deceived us!"
As the battle turned against them, Chaos Lords within the Black Legion began directing their fury at Abaddon himself, blaming him for their impending doom.
Facing the wrath and accusations of the same former Sons of Horus who had once pledged him unwavering loyalty, Abaddon remained unnervingly calm.
"Silence, fool!"
The Despoiler's eyes, glowing with raw warp power, flashed with murderous light.
CLANG—SHHK!
His lightning claws, like twin reaping scythes, pierced straight through the chest of the raving traitor. The twin storm bolters mounted upon the gauntlets roared, their explosive rounds tearing through flesh and armor alike. Internal organs and blood splattered the bulkhead as the man's two hearts and three lungs burst open from within.
Abaddon stood motionless, his eyes glowing red with the blessings of the Four Chaos Gods. He looked toward his cabal of Chaos Sorcerers and said coldly, "Prepare the ascension ritual."
"My Warmaster, are you certain of this?"
Abaddon had long since earned the right to ascend to daemonhood.
The only reason he had delayed was his desire for autonomy—to prove himself greater than the corrupted Primarchs who had become little more than playthings for the gods of the Warp. He wished to show he alone was worthy of the title of Warmaster.
Once ascended, he would indeed become stronger—but he would also lose the power to bargain with the Chaos Gods.
"With the lost souls of the Thirteenth Black Crusade, and the blood of my fallen kin upon Cadia as the offering, I shall…" Abaddon had made his decision. He was never one to hesitate.
"How pitiful. How contemptible."
At that moment, a deep voice echoed through the bridge, accompanied by a blinding beam of pure, golden light that pierced straight through the hull of the Vengeful Spirit. The brilliance seared the eyes of all who saw it before fading away.
Crack… crack…
Spiderweb-like fissures spread across the adamantium-plated floor. The figure that emerged stood tall, his white cloak edged in gold, emblazoned with the sigil of a wolf's head and a vertical eye. It billowed majestically behind him.
The Wolf-God stood there, unmoving, exuding an overwhelming aura of divine authority.
The very air trembled beneath it.
"You've already failed, Fallen King! Why have you returned? Why do you appear before me in this disgusting mockery of form!?"
Facing this impostor pretending to be his gene-father, Abaddon's entire armor suit groaned as the fiber-bundles within strained. Rage burned in his eyes. The Talon of Horus locked into place on his arm with a metallic clang, emitting a shrill, malevolent screech as arcs of chaotic energy danced along its blades.
"You are NOT him!"
Abaddon roared—his cry both fury and lament, mourning all that was lost, even as it became his declaration of defiance against everything he once believed.
Horus merely inclined his head slightly, prideful and cold. He raised his lightning claw—far larger and more radiant than the one Abaddon bore, at least from the perspective of the Sacred Selene Empire—and regarded him with disdain.
Too slow.
Szzk—!
Five claws pierced straight through the chest of the Imperium's greatest enemy. The blades erupted from Abaddon's back in a spray of blood. Yet the Despoiler did not fall. He stared into that unblemished face with mad defiance—and laughed.
Looking down at the massive blades impaled through his torso, Abaddon felt no spark of connection between father and son, no genetic kinship—only a searing alien corruption. The pain tore through his body, and he knew.
The being before him—was not his Primarch.
"I am no son of yours!" Abaddon roared through blood and agony.
SHRRK—
In cold silence, Horus tore off the head crowned with its defiant topknot. He did not linger on the act. To him, it was as trivial as crushing an insect. His mind was already consumed by another, heavier thought.
After a long, silent pause, he muttered in a low voice, "I… was a traitor? The greatest of them all?"
"No… this is a trial. I am a warrior of Selene… I will not believe in prophecy."
—
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