"That's fast. The Old Man must have noticed something."
Zhou Ye rubbed his forehead at the sight of the enormous wolf banner.
He could confirm one thing — this was almost certainly the Golden Old Man's doing. The Emperor could not focus his gaze on any individual, but he still had general awareness of where crises were erupting, as long as the location wasn't being deliberately veiled by the Warp's special concealment effects.
So naturally he would take some kind of countermeasure. Whether it would actually work was a separate question.
"Were you swept here directly by a Warp storm?"
After a brief exchange with the contact, Zhou Ye decided to go and receive the Astartes in person. Their arrival here was either because the God-Emperor had noticed this planet's problems, or because Tzeentch had decided in his signature blunt fashion to dump trouble on Nurgle's head.
The Chaos Gods despised each other. Tzeentch in particular harbored a special, burning loathing for Nurgle. With that in mind, Zhou Ye set off toward the port.
"I just finished fabricating a ten-thousand-year-old ancient popsicle. Should I bring him out for a walk?"
He muttered to himself as he walked, tucking away the old contract. Nobody else could see it. Then he prepared himself for a fresh new brawl.
But the moment he stepped into the orbital port, he found himself face to face with a Space Wolf wearing ice-blue armor — and an expression that could only be described as deeply, profoundly pained.
"Ultramarines successor — Star of Trailblaze Chapter Master, Gurest."
He threw together a name on the spot. What surprised him was that the Space Wolf paid almost no attention to it. Instead the man reached out and grabbed Zhou Ye by the arm, his tone somewhere between uncertain and deeply uncomfortable.
"Brother, what I'm about to ask of you — please keep it together. Do not reach for your weapon."
"Hm?"
Zhou Ye tilted his head. This Space Wolf was nothing like his mental image of the breed. The expression the man was wearing — that guilt-ridden, slightly unhinged look, that very specific blend of stomach pain and existential constipation — what exactly was going on here.
Had he drunk himself brain-damaged? What was wrong with this one.
If it weren't for those distinctly Space Wolves-characteristic fangs, Zhou Ye would have had serious doubts about the man's identity.
At this moment, Volvok Blood-Howl was staring at the Ultramarines-marked Adept standing in front of him with an expression of considerable inner turmoil. Ultramarines Chapters were the most devoted to the Codex. The figure before him radiated a powerful sense of authority, stood a full head taller than himself, and exuded the very specific energy of a man who had worked himself half to death doing administrative paperwork.
He could confirm with confidence that this person was absolutely an Ultramarine. So....
"What exactly is going on here?"
Looking at the Space Wolves warrior before him, Zhou Ye's hand had by pure instinct moved toward his bolt rifle. He was beginning to seriously wonder if this individual was an Alpha Legion plant.
"Ultramarines brother — come with us."
But before that thought could go further, the Space Wolf stretched his face into a smile that didn't quite work, and then shortly after....
"...."
Zhou Ye fell silent. And beside him, Volvok Blood-Howl and the assembled Space Wolves — a Codex-compliant company's worth — all wore precisely the same expression.
"Haah...."
Zhou Ye exhaled deeply.
What had appeared before him was an Astra Militarum company.
This was, he realized, his first time operating alongside the Imperial Guard. That was fine. More than fine. And this particular Imperial Guard company was from Aestia — the very world he had left behind. Also fine. Extremely familiar territory.
It was a perfectly equipped, immaculately presented Guard regiment.
And it was standing in formation before him, submitting itself to inspection by its Chapter Master.
Its equipment far exceeded anything Zhou Ye would have expected from a standard Astra Militarum force.
Interspersed throughout were Necron heavy obelisk platforms. Gauss rifles. Phase weaponry. Leman Russ battle tanks. Lasguns. And most importantly — scattered throughout in a pattern that Zhou Ye found both deeply familiar and intensely painful to witness — the Holy Necrons.
It was a mixed Imperial Guard regiment composed of humans and Necrons fighting side by side. Zhou Ye pressed his fingers to his forehead.
"These are Ecclesiarchy-recognized Abhumans. The Holy Necrons."
Volvok, the highest-ranking Space Wolf present, felt compelled to add this clarification.
Their mission had been to reinforce a particular front, and to transport this freshly formed and already notorious regiment — organized from the world of Aestia — to the battlefield.
Honestly, the Wolf Pack hadn't known much about Aestia going in. Being a Chapter that had never once cared about the Codex Astartes, they equally did not care about Synodal proclamations, and so they had not been fully briefed on what awaited them there. All they had known was that this was a very famous planet. But the moment they had set foot on its surface and interfaced with local records, everything changed.
The golden glint of the Necrons had very nearly blinded all of them on the spot. Had it not been for that unmistakable sacred scent of the Emperor radiating from every one of them, the Space Wolves would have gone straight for their weapons without a second thought. Their Commissar, who had been standing right there, had frantically attempted to explain: they are holy Necrons. They are loyal subjects of the Imperium. They have come to serve its glory, they—
The Commissar had eventually begun to struggle with maintaining a straight face himself. Because the highest-ranking entities in the unit were several Deathmarks. And the rest were entirely soulless standard Necron Warriors, whose command authority rested in the hands of the regiment's Colonel — whose command codes were registered to a Necron tomb complex.
And so this regiment, which looked precisely like a very faithful heresy, had set off on its mission. Then they had flown straight into a Warp storm. Along the way they had also spotted a small flotilla composed of an Administratum and a Mechanicus vessel, which had likewise been swept into the Warp's depths alongside them.
There was nothing they could have done about that. The distance was too great for any intervention.
But then....
"Well. The feudal world below us — Tillius — is currently under invasion by Greenskins, Aeldari, and Nurglite plague zombies. The planet needs your strength. I was wondering if......."
Suppressing the smile that was trying to crawl onto his face, Zhou Ye turned to face the Space Wolves behind him and the Guard regiment's Colonel and Commissar with an expression of complete solemnity.
As for the Holy Necrons — to be entirely clear, these were his creations in the most literal sense. Brought into existence with genuine Inquisitorial authorization from Inquisitor Chris and with his own world-shaking ingenuity, they were a brand new loyal heresy.
"For the All-Father and Russ!!!"
The Space Wolves agreed without a moment's hesitation. The Warp storm in the area hadn't cleared yet. They couldn't leave even if they wanted to. So agreeing was the obvious choice.
For an Astartes, there was no good reason to refuse a call to purge the enemies of the Imperium.
And so it was that on that day, the people of Tillius looked up and saw countless shooting stars descending from the sky above their world.
The Angels of legend had descended among them once more.
---o---
PS: Third update delivered. Finally untangled the next arc's plot direction.