Editing Sigismund (section)

===Horus Heresy===
When the [[Horus Heresy]] kicked off, Sigismund was part of the very first group of loyalists to hear of the treachery, being at the side of Rogal Dorn when the ''[[Eisenstein]]'' delivered news of the Isstvan III massacre. He had his first discussions with the Imperial "Saint" Euphrati Keeler, who told him that he would die unremembered under an unknown star if he left his father's side. This discussion affected Sigismund deeply, so he requested that Dorn task someone else with leading the Retribution Fleet after Dorn ordered him to go; Dorn thought this was an odd request, but allowed it and [[Battle of Phall|Captain Hashin Yonnad was sent instead]]. You've never heard of Yonnad because he died just like Keeler predicted. Ironically, Sigismund's absence at Phall would lead [[Perturabo]] to make the wrong assumptions about how the battle would go, and result in the Fists nearly winning and a large chunk of the Retribution Fleet escaping. When news came about the [[Drop Site Massacre]] and the full scale of rebellion became apparent, Sigismund was ordered to purge any remnants of the traitors in the Solar System, purging the memorial asteroid with his Templar elite and the Assault Cadre under [[Fafnir Rann]]. This began a fruitful five years of Rann talking shit to Sigismund while they killed every motherfucker in their path.

Sigismund then led a mission to [[Mars]] to retrieve as many weapons and suits of armour as possible, since by that time Mars was [[Dark Mechanicum|FUCKED]]. Despite really, ''really'' wanting to kill everything standing between him and the traitor Fabricator-General Kelbor-Hal, Sigismund realized that the Imperial Fists couldn't retake the planet without reinforcements, ordering Imperial forces to retreat when the forges were surrounded by traitor Titans.
 
Before leaving for Mars, Sigismund confessed his reasons for refusing to take the Retribution mission to his [[Rogal Dorn|father]], explaining the vision he had received from "Saint" Keeler. Unfortunately, Dorn flipped his shit and accused Sigismund of arrogance, superstition, and forgetting what it meant to be an Imperial Fist; as a Space Marine and a servant of the Emperor, he had no right to determine his fate in such a way. Dorn further compared him to the rebels they were now fighting. When Sigismund begged Dorn to execute him then and there, Dorn disowned him as a son and from the Legion. To prevent Sigismund's "weakness" from tainting the rest of the Legion, however, he was allowed to retain his rank, but was dispatched to the farthest fringes of the Solar System as a means of getting rid of him, a fate for Sigismund which was worse than death though he took solace in his duty. There he would remain until the [[Horus Heresy]] hit its climax.

Despite being quietly disowned for his involvement with Euphrati Keeler, Sigismund used his influence in the Legion to keep discreet tabs on her movements. When the Saint was targeted for assassination in the run-up to the Siege of Terra, Sigismund personally answered her distress call and returned to the homeworld, where he met [[Knights-Errant|Nathaniel Garro]] again. Knowing that Dorn would likely be ''<u>extremely</u>'' pissed at him for ignoring his orders a second time, he handed over all the information he had on the Saint to Garro, passing his self-appointed duty as her guardian off to him.

Having been largely sidelined during the Battle of Pluto (still killing plenty of Alpha Legionnaires), Sigismund was the first Imperial commander to engage the Traitors. He got swarmed by the Fifth Company of the Sons of Horus under Horus Aximand, who was ready to move in on the wounded Sigismund and finish the job when Rann and First Lieutenant Boreas intervened. Sigismund then rallied hard and injured Aximand before making for Terra, though he lost his ship and Boreas to Aximand.

Defending the First Wall, Sigismund defeated several Chaos Champions before facing Kharn and losing badly as the (not yet) Betrayer had been blessed by Khorne. As Kharn was about to kill Sigi, Dorn intervened and bitch-slapped Kharn out of the way. Later on he led a kill team against a Sons of Horus assault force that attempted to tunnel under the Saturnine Wall of the Imperial Palace (that ended up unnecessary as [[Arkhan Land]] unleashed a huge amount of quick setting concrete on the traitor tunnel force, [[Grimdark|burying them alive]]), then went up to the top of the wall and got into a fight with Fulgrim. He managed to land a few hits, but Fulgrim, being a daemon prince, promptly beat him down. Dorn intervened again, forcing Fulgrim into an undignified retreat, after which father and gene-son saw off fifty-six of the III Legion's best fighters together.

In the time just after Corswain's contingent of [[Dark Angels]] secured the [[Astronomican]] and just before the [[Jaghatai Khan|Khan]] retook the Lion's Gate Spaceport, Dorn summoned Sigismund to his command center and issued the first captain a simple order: "Hurt them." As Sigismund made his way out to the battlefield, he was presented with the Black Sword by one of Malcador's agents. Weary, embittered, and wounded in spirit, Sigismund accepted the blade, resolved now to fight for what the Imperium would have to become, not what it could have been. As the traitor forces ground toward the Inner Palace, Sigismund met them on the field, challenging their captains and praetors to single combat and killing them one after the other. As his body count grew, rumors of the warrior known as the "Black Sword" or the "Emperor's Champion" spread across the Palace, heartening the loyalist forces and demoralizing the traitors CONSIDERABLY. Both sides began seeking him out, the loyalists forming an army around him while the traitors sought to challenge him themselves. It was at this time that he and Kharn had their legendary final duel. At first they were pretty evenly matched, but when a slobbering Kharn realized he couldn't get a rise or even any sort of reaction out of Sigismund, he became increasingly unnerved, because Siggy's cold, contemptuous repose could've given a [[Necron]] or the [[Legion of the Damned]] something to admire. Kharn eventually received something of a vision of the future, when Sigismund's [[Black Templars]] would roam the galaxy bringing death to the enemies of the Master of Mankind, and that all of them would be as [[Grimdark|deadly and silent as Sigismund]]. This caused Kharn to panic for all of the 4 seconds it took Sigismund to exploit this opening and literally (not figuratively) [[Rip and Tear|cut Kharn to pieces]]. Before his end, he still managed to say to Sigismund "I am not as damaged as you." And though he gave no outward reply, Sigismund likely thought in response "[[TTS|I know. And I don't care]]."