Chapter Text
“TWENTY HIDDEN CAMERAS, WHAT THE HELL [redacted]!”
“Look, I need you out of my business, the diagram you have on my relationships is just plain creepy.”
“WHAT DID YOU DO TO [redacted], HE JUST LEFT THE COUNTRY?!”
———————
He was falling. Well he’s been falling for a while now. Weightless in an unending void, descending past memories he’s not quite quick enough to grasp. Was he dead, is he a soul? He’s not quite sure, he doesn’t remember dying.
The voices that surround him are confusing, They sound of distrust, discomfort, and indignation. He’s not sure exactly what the situations were, but he doesn't think he meant them any harm. He feels the impression that he cared for them, so he doesn't understand why he warranted such responses.
He drifts longer, time passes quietly as he’s left alone in his thoughts. The void is abyssal in its emptiness, smooth and dense like tar. He’s losing parts of himself, a childhood, family, his name. It's causing his soul to change gradually, it’s expanding, absorbing bits of this place. Something destabilizes, he realizes as his descent becomes erratic, discomfort following along, it’s shaky like being a toy jostled in a box. At some point, he knows he’s about to be flung, he braces as-
His soul feels light as he comes back to physicality, contentment and trust, the strangeness of half his weight being lifted by a pile of warmth. Then-
pain—PaIN_—-PAIN
———————
He keels over, a massive unfamiliar physique being pulled down by gravity he hasn’t felt in eons. It’s a minor thing, quickly being crushed by a pain spreading through his body in a manner that litzenberg scars stretch.
He’s fallen to a kneeling position, right hand grasped at his chest, left hand dug into the ground, cracking at the tiled floors. His head aches, centuries of memories overwhelming him.
His soul is assimilating with another, it’s not a harsh assimilation, the souls resonate well with one another, as if it were always meant to be. The real problem is that half of his new soul is being severed from him, it’s as quick as a snap yet his new senses feel every millisecond of it as his hungry soul desperately attempts to claw back the detached threads.
The urge to scream and sob bears down on him. Shards of glass pierce his heart, felt from a loss too deep to describe in words. It is wrong, he seethes vision misting over.
For a moment, a measly second, he had touched upon the feeling of connection and understanding so profound it filled his soul with a contentment foreign from anything he’d ever felt before. Like a purring cat cuddled up with their human by the fireplace.
Despite the tantrum he was tempted to unleash, one no different from a child with a snatched toy, surely. No sound would escape him, instinctual discipline would not allow it. Even as his mouth fills with blood from a bitten tongue, he swallows it down.
Commotion would draw the attention of his sons, he is certain a few of them are monitoring his room just for the sake of it. Instead he breathes in harshly through gritted teeth, head bearing down on his berth he had fallen by.
A wave of memories crash over him, reorganising his thoughts with efficiency he begins to dissect his aching mind for answers. Moments later, he knows he is in his private chambers. He is on his flagship, Beta. Beta is the flagship of the Alpha legion. This is the Warhammer universe.
He is Omegon, and he has just lost Alpharius.
—————
Warhammer, the grimdark galaxy held together by zealots, delusion, war and spite. A hateful place, where hope turns to despair with the change in the wind. Not a universe you’d ever want to land in, not even with the boredom of the void.
Omegon mused, sat on his berth in his private chambers. The pain has faded, leaving behind a chronic ache twitching at his muscles. He shrugs it off for now, time is ticking and there are plans to be mapped.
Heaving himself to a desk he grabs a parchment and begins to dot out all the events he remembers in cipher. He has 4 Terran years before the Emperor’s duel with Horus, beyond that, Omegon despairs silently, he doesn’t know much about the 30k era.
Most of his plot knowledge was of the 40k era, revolving around his brother the 13th. He never bothered to delve too much into the lore, it was just a nice pass time. Tidbits of the current era came from Reddit threads he scrolled through, much of it being unreachable or useless to him.
Omegon sighs pushing the parchment off to the side, numb hand reaching to hold his head, pain prickled beneath his touch. Survival and consolidation came first, in the main timeline the Alpha legion would be fractured due to split loyalties, ambiguous leadership, and Chaos corruption. He cannot follow Omegon's original plans of ambiguity, at least not with the alpha legionaries following him, they need a goal to rally under, but what does he want?
Footsteps, too light for the weight they carry stop, as the door to his chamber opens.
“Lord Omegon,” Arkos, his equerry stepped into the room, the Astartes bowed briefly, before gazing at his Primarch’s mildly dishevelled appearance. “Is something the matter M’lord?”
“No,” Omegon pauses for an instant, turning to the equerry. “What matters do you seek me for?”
“The Warmaster seeks consultation with Lord Alpharius.”
“Do we have anything on what his concern is?”
“No M’Lord,” Arkos replies, lips pursed slightly, Father’s presence feels off today, nothing irregular to what is their speciality- but something tickles at the back of his mind. “Our sources within the Warmaster’s court have become… unreliable.”
Omegon nods letting instinct carry him as his mind races. “Prepare the metatron, I will speak to my brother.”
Arkos nods, gaze stilling on his primarch for just a moment, searching for something, before turning to leave.
“Arkos.”
“M’lord?” Arkos turns, feet stilling.
“Draft a missive to all Alpharius agents across the galaxy to remain on standby, this is a halting of all directives with the exception of sleeper agents and informational personnel. Contact Harrowmaster Kel Silonius, to Initiate a full strategic withdrawal from Pluto, have Alpha rejoin Beta. The order is to be… unobtrusive.”
“It will be done M’Lord.” Said Arkos, disappearing through a ceiling vent.
——————
Alone once more, Omegon walks to the armoury. Superhuman mind cataloging the changes made to his state by the assimilation of souls, readjusting his condition to meet expectations.
He is Omegon, not an intruder but a missing fragment returned home. The soul of the void was mostly a blank slate, identity mostly missing with fragments of knowledge tacked on. It latches on to Omegon’s soul, burrowing and sealing over crevices, the void staining his soul has enhanced aspects of emptiness, the state of not there, remarkably allowing his soul to be untraceable and unpresent from the eyes of the warp.
Their memories are slightly blurred, he has the knowledge of names he should know, and names he shouldn’t. He knows places, maps, networks- he knows Alpharius, knows the feeling of him there, he knows the understanding, the companionship, the love, the harmony of their souls. It's disquieting.
HE, was used to being alone, too controlling, too knowing for any normal being to be comfortable with. Omegon however, had never truly been alone, not ever since his conception. He feels the empty space within his mind, a place Omegon kept sacred to host his twin, Alpharius. The loss is a jagged wound, eternally bleeding, leaving a chronic, throbbing ache that will not go away.
He only had the chance to truly feel that shared bond for a moment, Yet he wished he’d never had it at all. Never has being alone ever felt so wrong.
‘He is alone.’
Sparks prickle along his nerves.
‘He's alone once more.’
Its wrongIts Wrong its wRONG
—————
The armoury is as cold as the rest of the ship. Chill helps to numb the pain as the servitors bolt armour plates to his skin. He breathes as he prepares for the meeting with Horus. Omegon knows Horus will want to know the status of the Alpha Legion’s attack on Pluto. He knows protocol Alpharius will be enacted then.
Moving forward, Omegon intends to pull away from the Warmaster’s alliance he knows from the lore that the Alpha legion never joins the Battle of Terra, he deduces it is at this point they begin secretly pulling out manpower and resources.
That's good, it works for him, what's urgent is the necessity to regroup the legionaries his twin left behind and figure out where to act next.
Omegon thinks of AO26-H an unreported oasis world with six moons situated at the very fringes of Segmentum Obscurus near its border with Segmentum Pacificus. The planet was one similar in climate to 2nd millennium Terra. The fauna and flora present were easily manageable, and no great harm was sustained by the erasure of the intelligent species, [redacted], on the planet. It now hosted one of the Alpha Legion’s only fortress worlds.
The planet was discovered by a small contingent of legionaries returning from a successful sabotage operation. The agents had decided to take the scenic- [read: unnecessarily convoluted] route to reach the rendezvous point with senior command. They proceeded to get caught up in an unregistered asteroid belt, requiring an emergency landing in which they came upon AO26-H, perfectly obscured and naturally defended by said belt. After events [redacted] and [redacted], Alpharius Omegon decreed the world theirs, and so the perfect place to disappear to.
As for the meeting with Horus at hand. Omegon holds his breadth as he suppresses the inhuman growl lodged at his throat, tips of his fingers tremble ever so slightly as the gauntlet is faceted. Alpharius was slain for the Warmasters ambition, its a childish accusation, there was so much at play including his twin’s own ego, but Omegon does not care.
Alpharius was His other half, his only true brother. The Warmaster and his other incompetent traitor ‘brothers’ do not deserve his twin’s efforts. Dorn, Omegon may not side with the traitors, but he resolves to shatter the Praetorian’s pride.
Tickling the back of his thoughts behind a veil he himself placed, Omegon wonders if his role in countering Alpharius’s plans played into his death. He doesn’t dare analyse it, it’ll break him.
—————
Omegon arrives at the meeting room, Akros and a few other Astartes spy from random points in the room. A compulsive deception fills Omegon as he calms unnaturally when the metatron begins chanting and lighting up.
“I am Alpharius,” he said. “What is your will, my Warmaster?”
This is a lie.