"Set our Father down!"
The Alpha Legionnaires, freshly escaped from the depths of the Hydra vaults, instantly leveled their bolters and blades at the two interlopers. Their fury was focused squarely on the robed figure who held the severed hands of their Primarch aloft with the unseen grip of psychic power.
Fabius Bile flashed a predatory, serpentine smile, raising his hands in a mock gesture of surrender.
The hooded figure, however, remained seemingly deaf to their threats. He spoke as if admiring a fine work of art. "I am a generous god, and I shall tolerate your ignorant insolence. Your Primarch's body shall be returned to you, but not these."
He punctuated his statement by brandishing Omegon's severed limbs.
The Alpha Astartes moved to open fire, but the sharp crack of a staff striking the deck plates rang out. A towering warrior stepped forward, signaling for them to hold.
This massive Alpha Legionnaire approached Lucius, looming over him as if trying to peer through the veil of his identity. Then, to the collective shock and disbelief of every Legionnaire present, he sank to one knee before the robed man.
"Drazus, what are you doing?!"
"Have you lost your mind?"
The outcries of his battle-brothers elicited no reaction. Drazus slowly removed his helm, revealing the quintessential face of an Alpha Legion Primarch, a pale, bald man, though half of his features were obscured by a jagged, terrifying hydra tattoo that snaked across his scalp.
"My name is Drazus Jate," the Astartes said, his voice low as he knelt. "I implore you... help me. Help me rebuild our Legion."
At this, the other Alpha Legionnaires were certain he had succumbed to madness. Though one Primarch had fallen, it was common knowledge within the XX Legion that they possessed two. The ultimate outcome of the war remained undecided, and the main strength of the Legion was intact—why speak of rebuilding?
Moreover, the restoration of the Legion was the purview of Alpharius. What could this robed stranger possibly offer?
Lucius looked upon him with genuine interest. "Unlike other false idols, I am quite industrious. What you desire, you shall receive."
Hope flared in the giant Astartes' eyes. He rose and, with deep deference, escorted the robed figure and Fabius Bile away. Turning back, he faced the interrogation of his peers.
"What in the name of the Hydra are you doing, Drazus?"
Drazus's expression was one of quiet liberation. "Simply... striving to ensure the Hydra grows two heads where one was severed."
He offered no further explanation, making it clear that if they were dissatisfied, he would take those loyal to him and depart on his own mission. With the death of Omegon and pressing objectives elsewhere, the Alpha Legion could do little but let him go.
"What does he know?" Fabius Bile asked, trailing a few paces behind the robed man.
"A great deal," Lucius replied with a nod. "The Warp is a marvelous place, is it not?"
"No matter how marvelous, I shall eventually dismantle its mysteries through science. The Imperial Truth is the only eternity," Bile said, his chin held high. He surveyed their surroundings. "At this point in time... heh, my younger self is quite a curiosity. I wish to secure some pure gene-seed from my Legion—now, before they are too deeply corrupted by Chaos."
"Very well. Consider it your payment," Lucius agreed.
By now, Horus's grand host had reached the Throneworld of the Solar System. The battle that would decide the fate of the Imperium had begun in earnest. Yet, no matter how grand or tragic the conflict, it was of no concern to Lucius and Fabius Bile. They were merely scavengers amidst the ruins.
Despite lacking aircraft or voidships, Bile found himself walking across the vacuum as if on solid ground, heading toward the fire-blackened spires of Holy Terra.
Strangely, though Rogal Dorn had only just slain Omegon, the "Praetorian" seemed to have already returned to the defenses of Terra. Bile understood this was the "divine power" of his companion, though he preferred to view it as an application of temporal technology, skipping months of travel to arrive at the height of the Siege.
The traitor hordes were battering the walls of the Imperial Palace. The Iron Warriors and the Imperial Fists were locked in a grinding war of attrition, stone against iron.
Heavy armor and super-heavy vehicles were as common as bikes on the battlefield. The Titan Legions strode forward with glacial, unstoppable intent, raining god-shaking fire upon the foe.
Lucius and Bile's objective was easy to locate: the Emperor's Children. Once the most noble and perfect of the Legions, the IIIrd had now spiraled into the abyss of depravity. While the other rebels besieged the Palace, the Emperor's Children had turned their attention to the civilian population of Holy Terra, commencing a horrific carnival of excess.
Mutations had already begun to mar the forms of these purple-clad warriors. They dragged Terran civilians from the ruins, subjecting them to every conceivable violation to sate their primal, twisted lusts.
Unseen, Bile and Lucius walked through the burning streets. Countless civilians either offered a final, desperate resistance or fled in blind terror.
"Don't run~ Oh, wait, do run! It makes the sport so much sweeter, hahahaha!"
A group of Emperor's Children in power armor watched the fleeing masses with the glazed, frantic ecstasy of addicts in a mad playground. Those who resisted were caught and subjected to agonies beyond description. By the time the Astartes grew bored, nothing remained of the victims but a flayed, bloody mess topped by a pristine, intact head.
"Ahhhh!"
A group of refugees tried to scramble past Lucius, but seeing Bile, they scattered in a panic. Bile watched them with an expression of pure boredom. He felt no kinship with his fallen brothers; in his eyes, it was their lack of restraint that had doomed the Legion to ruin.
Several Emperor's Children gave chase, stopping when they recognized Bile. Their once-beautiful faces, now sallow from drug use and sensory overload, twisted in confusion.
"Fabius? You are here as well? Hahaha! And is this your pet? Oh~ walking ahead of its master? What an unruly little kitten. Come, let me see your face~"
One of the III Legion warriors reached out with a lightning claw toward Lucius, intending to peel away not just the hood, but the skin beneath.
Bile stepped forward instantly. "Your organs will soon be useless. I must work quickly."
The mechanical chirurgeon-arms on his back surged to life, brandishing a lethal array of surgical tools.
"What are you doing, Fabius?!"
The Chief Apothecary offered no reply, only a master's precision.
The Fabius Bile of ten thousand years in the future was a creature these drug-addled hedonists could not hope to match. In a blur of motion, the Emperor's Children were meticulously dismantled into choice cuts of meat. Bile reached in and extracted the gene-seed, still pure enough, as yet untainted by the worst of the Warp's warp.
"The color and viability are... acceptable," Bile noted, stowing the organs into a nutrient-vat.