Chapter 1: Memories (Patreon)

Welcome one and all to my freshest of projects and rejoice for I have finally taken the plunge!

Indeed, tis 'warhammering time (40k to be specific)

As such you should expect setting appropriate things like horrors beyond human comprehension, horrors well within human comprehension, people being plain assholes, and said people dying by the millions.

'Tis simply the nature of the beast I'm afraid.

A few notes still;

The mc shall be a psyker of considerable potence.

And for the sake of my sanity the main character shall be a reincarnate.

Also, for those of you utterly sick and tired of the trope as I am, you will be happy to know that there shall be no such abomination as (and may the Emperor forgive me for even uttering the words) eldar or other alien/daemon loving involved in this story.

Bleh.

In this house we stan His Imperial Majesty The Emperor of Mankind, Beloved By All, and no one else.

On another note, big thanks to the local purveyor of deviant behavior Aliya for helping me out with some edits.

“-And through Him you shall find your salvation!” The Deacon’s hoarse voice rang out across the chapel. “Let faith be your sword! Let it be your shield, and your armor, and the gauntlet clutched around the traitors’ throats! AVE IMPERATOR!”

“AVE IMPERATOR!” His flock answered like an avalanche.

The Deacon’s eyes filled with grim determination as the chapel’s walls shook, dust falling off the thick rockcrete walls, and he opened his mouth to lead the prayer once more.

In the back of the building a small child no older than ten frowned and took a few steps back until he was leaning against one of the massive supporting pillars where the few remaining members of the Planetary Defense Force were going over their weapons one last time.

A grizzled old soldier saw him and spat a glob of flehm on the stone floor. “Whaddaya want, kid? The good Deacon’s words boring you?”

The child didn’t answer immediately, instead looking the man over with eyes that seemed both present and not.

“They should be preparing.” He spoke just before the soldier got annoyed by the quiet. “Prayer alone will not keep the traitors at bay.”

The man grunted while looking around suspiciously. “Too true. But ’s not like the damn chapel has a secret weapon stash.” He squinted at the child. “Does it?”

The kid shrugged as if to say: ‘How should I know?’

The soldier squinted. “Some damn help you are.” He grumbled. “So, whaddaya want then?”

“A weapon, preferably.” The child shrugged again, a small smile on his face despite the constant shaking of the walls as he eyed the laspistol on the Corporal’s belt.

“Oh really?”

The kid made a few quick serious nods. “I’ll watch your back.”

“You will, will you?” The man chuckled lightly before his face turned serious and he reached for his weapon, unbuckling it as he spoke softly. “Listen kid, once the fighting starts, you run to the back and don’t come out until the noise stops, got it? Do that, and I’ll give you my weapon.”

The child’s eyes widened, leaving him silent for a good few seconds. “… Got it.”

“There’s a good kid.” The Corporal offered him the pistol. “You know how to use one?”

“Point and click?”

“Damn right.” He chuckled. “You got a name, kid?”

“Konstantin.”

Konstantin

“That’s a good name.” The old soldier said softly as he looked away. “Strong.”

I said nothing as he seemed to draw back into himself, back straightening on ingrained instinct just a few moments before a far younger man wearing a military cap instead of the usual flak helmet walked up to us.

I quickly hid the laspistol under my factorum overalls. At least I got what I came for.

“Sah!” The Corporal saluted.

“Come Igor.” The PDF officer said without breaking his stride. “Karl’s got the heavy stubber working again and we need to set it up before the traitors come.”

The two left without another word.

I stared after the pair for a few seconds longer after they’d disappeared behind a door to the chapel’s bell tower before walking back to the edge of the praying crowd, palming my weapon the entire time as if someone was going to come over and take it from me.

It was a reasonable fear.

Ever since I ‘woke up’ in Hive Zamor some six (Standard Terran) years ago and saw the two headed aquila embossed into the orphanage’s walls and heard the matron praising the God Emperor of Mankind, I knew exactly the kind of unenviable fate I’d been cursed with.

The first few years had been hell.

Learning to blend in while accepting my new life was difficult, they were filled with a constant despair and a doubt of reality, doubly so when such moods started making things around me… weird.

Making peace with all of it was a struggle.

But I persisted, and I had a good head on my shoulders besides, so instead of going straight to the factory lines like most of the other kids the moment we turned seven I was assigned to helping the Overseer keep the books alongside three other kids.

The hours were long, the food was terrible, and you got to wash your clothes once a week if you were lucky, but at least we weren’t eating corpse starch, and we got seconds, sometimes.

It was an almost respectable path to the future. Something to work towards and pretend everything else in this cursed galaxy simply did not exist while wallowing in what didn’t even pass muster for mediocrity in my memories.

But I knew better.

Someone like me would never be left alone, it was only a matter of time.

And so, I prepared, trained where I could, learned tricks from street prowling crooks, studied the faith from old tales, and when alone I practiced half-forgotten meditations, for when the time came.

When I would either turn myself in, or when something else decided I’d dawdled long enough.

The die it would seem, had landed on the latter.

An explosion detonated far closer to the chapel, shaking it so hard I needed to lean against the wall to avoid falling.

The others were less fortunate though, half of the crowd slamming into the rest as the nave was filled with confused screams and curses.

The Decon and his Acolytes began reasserting order just as the outside was filled with even more noise, guttural battle cries and the report of small arms fire hitting the walls while the few PDF troops with us returned their own far more disciplined yet just as desperate fire.

A squint of my sight and I could see the unwashed hordes of wide-eyed cultists outside, pushing themselves over each other in their eagerness to be the first to reach the line only to be cut down for their efforts.

The deaths only seemed to egg them on and they happily screamed their souls out, exalting the Dark Gods as they threw themselves into the meat grinder.

My sight caught a mark ritually scarred into their leader’s forehead and I immediately opened my eyes, breathing heavily as I felt a harsh throbbing in my head.

“Fear is the mind killer.” I muttered and kept muttering while the noise grew louder.

Only to suddenly break.

“Our moment comes, brothers and sisters!” The Deacon’s voice cut through the noise as he roared himself hoarse, waving a construction maul above his head. “He has deemed us worthy of a challenge!”

The priest began to rant and rave like the best of them, and the terror and confusion in the eyes of his faithful was slowly replaced with grim determination as they started picking up random pieces of metal or even wood, slowly turning back to the chapel’s entrance where the fighting had only grown more intense.

 “Come!” The priest roared as he passed through the crowd, letting them touch his pristine white and gold robes as he went. “Only the worthy may spend eternity by His side, and I shall greet you all gladly at end! With me brothers and sisters! For the Emperor!”

“FOR THE EMPEROR!”

The crowd of faithful quickly turned into an avalanche of people as the priest reached the fore and they rushed through the chapel’s main entrance, passing by the entrenched PDF soldiers while roaring their battle cries.

The Deacon was shot at least thrice the moment he stepped out into the open but he didn’t seem to even notice it as he rushed into the horde of heretics, and his flock charged after him.

Leaving only the young and infirm within the chapel.

Only a bit longer and I could leg it. Or at least try to.

Almost unconsciously, I found myself walking to the center of the building, staring up at the grand armored statue wielding a sword and shield, that of a skull headed warrior crowned with a thorned halo of gold.

The God Emperor of Mankind.

How eagerly hundreds threw themselves to their deaths for that figure. Mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, scholars, artisans, healers, laborers…

I could still hear their screams outside.

Was any of it worth it? I wondered for the thousandth time. Knowing more than I should have ever known.

What use was fighting when a man who had seen us at our lowest and greatest failed. All he’d managed to achieve was delay our slow inevitable death.

He probably knew it as well, and yet he fought anyway.

We can offer you peace…

A voice? Scratched gently at the edge of my senses.

You need not struggle anymore.

It whispered soothingly. Lovingly.

Let us in-

I looked back up at the masterfully carved marble skull.

-and all your woes will be forgotten.

“Ah.” I voiced lightly as my face twisted in realization.

So that was it.

Spite.

Pure, simple, and oh so very human.

It bubbled within my chest like a forgotten flame that refused to go out, growing with each word the parasite spat my way. I understood now.

Closing my eyes for a moment and ignoring the sights trying to worm their way into the darkness awaiting there, I lowered my mental focus ever so slightly, drawing an eager hungry cheer from the voices.

The air around me shuddered as I clutched my right hand, and the voices cried out in pain as an infinity of psychic knives stabbed into their flesh, screaming in outrage as they fled from my perception.

My eyes snapped open, revealing that the young and infirm had all taken steps or tumbles away from me, their terror a true and tangible thing in the air.

I took a slow step over the flash frozen ground and marched towards the main exit with my head held high, my veins practically boiling with power as I let the Warp in little by little.

If I was destined to die in this shithole, devoured by the parasites or other horrors, I would make damn sure they at least choked as they swallowed me.

Cpl. Igor of the 212th Zamorian PDF

The heavy stubber kicked into his shoulder like a mule as he fired, each bullet making the bullet wound in his neck bleed even harder while the delirious Captain held the ammo belt up with his sole remaining hand.

“Keep firin’.” The Captain mumbled with unfocused eyes. “Corn’l vox’d me. Reinforsm’nts are comin’.”

Igor felt hope rise in his chest, and he ignored the pain as he glared into the traitor hordes outside, pulling at the trigger of his heavy stubber hard enough to make his fingers go white.

Dozens of heretics fell to his mighty weapon each second, but there were far more of them than he had bullets, and a frenzy had taken them the moment Father Garin fell.

Each and every one wanted to be the first to reach the body and desecrate it.

He’d die before he’d let that happen, and something told him that moment was fast approaching.

“Igur.” The panicked Captain half slurred his name out. “Lft! Balcony!”

He twisted his heavy weapon sideways, taking a half second to aim it at the group that had climbed onto one of the more prosperous local markets with what looked like old rocket launchers.

He tugged at the trigger-

Click.

“Ah frak.” He cursed, knowing it was the end.

Only it wasn’t the tower that detonated, but the old balcony.

Some invisible force slammed into the heretics with the power of an earthshaker round, and that same force clutched the rubble, raising it into the air and crushing the heretics’ flank before the damned traitors even knew what was happening.

Igor caught something in the corner of his eye and looked down to see… the Emperor damned kid walking out onto the battlefield, an odd crackle surrounding him and each step leaving behind a trail of ice.

“The boy’s a witch.” Igor muttered in growing horror. “…Frak.”

A single crack broke the ensuing silence, as a tall heretic wearing PDF officer carapace rose from cover, firing off a shot from his stolen bolt pistol.

He didn’t even get to gawk at the shell floating in place an inch away from the witch’s head as his entire position was instantly crushed under an invisible weight.

Igor later learned, as he woke up in a hospital after losing consciousness due to blood loss, that the heretics fled as soon as their leader died, and that the child survived even after reinforcements came and the Arbiters took him away.

The old soldier pitied the child and prayed he would find his way in His service, one way or another.

Konstantin

My eyes opened slowly as the memory retreated.

“Good times.” I chuckled lightly to myself and went on with my morning rituals.

The cell assigned to me was claustrophobic and dark, a tiny metal cot, a small shelf in the wall, a writing table with a few half burned candles on top of it, and a small bathroom closet in the corner with no shower.

Downright luxurious by usual Scholastica Psykana standards, but people of my particular nature demanded a bare minimum.

If only to keep me away from the rest.

Idly scratching at the still uncomfortable implants stuck to the back of my head, I made sure my hair covered them up completely before tossing on my dull purple robes with the silver eye of the Adeptus Astra Telepathica on its sleeves and securing them with a simple leather belt.

A harsh and sudden knocking of metal on metal failed to surprise me as I methodically finished up and stood, smothering the feelings of excitement and trepidation as I went to join my fellow survivors of Holy Terra’s education system.

Today was assignment day, and hopefully my last day on this dead world.