Editing The Tales of the Emperasque: Part Two (section)

==Sometime later, at The Rock==
In the final, waning hours of the life of the Horus Heresy, no legion escaped unscathed. All eighteen of the surviving twenty legions had either gone over to Chaos or broken, save the Ultramarines. By the time of the Thirteenth Black Crusade, none of the loyal Primarchs remained, unscathed. Three were dead, in fact: Dorn, Sanguinius, and Manus. The others vanished or fell in battle after the fact: Guilliman, his throat cut; Corax, Vulkan, and Russ entered the Eye, and Jaghatai and The Lion simply disappeared. 

Disappeared, however, does not mean died. 

In the tumbling rocks of Caliban, overseen by the Watchers in the Dark, lay Lion El’Jonson, still comatose, but fully healed, after his climactic battle with Luther. Only Luther himself and the Watchers knew of this secret…aside from the Emperor. 

The empty caverns below the citadel of the Dark Angels bent, folded, and popped as the massive Emperor stepped forth. The purple flash illuminated dark corners of the chamber that had probably not seen daylight since the planet was sundered thousands of yeas ago. The Emperor looked around and sighed. “LOOKS LIKE I HAVE SOME WORK TO DO.” 

Above, in the fortress-monastery, the Angels were thrown into a panic. “What do you MEAN there’s a psyker signal from the Rock?” Sammael roared at the hapless Librarian. 

“I…mean what I said, brother, there is someone down there. Someone with a psychic power that is horrifyingly vast,” the Librarian answered contritely. 

Azrael, master of the Secrets, leader of the Dark Angels, strode into the room in fury. “What in the name of the Golden Throne,” he began without a trace of irony, “is going on in MY monastery?” 

Sammael spun to face him. “Brother, there is a psychic signal emanating from the places where the Watchers in the Dark go to die. Something is down there.”

Azrael buried his face in his hands. “I gathered that. I have ordered what few elements of the Deathwing remain here to gather, and prepare for an excursion into the Rock.”

“Let me save you the trouble,” a rasping voice said. 

Azrael and the other two men in the room spun about –a sight to see in power armor – to face a ragged old man, leaning on the wall, nursing his head. He was surrounded by a rapidly dispersing purple mist, and his free hand was blocking out the light in the room. Azrael gaped.

“…Master El’Jonson?”

The old man nodded slowly, then winced at the evident pain that caused him. “Yes…yes, brother Azrael, it is I. I confess I have been away for a time. I recall this world having trees when last I was here.”

The Librarian sank to knees, overcome with emotion. Sammael slowly raised his gauntleted hands to cover his gaping mouth. Azrael, however, recovered his composure, looking grim. “Ah…Master El’Jonson…the Vault…it is not refilled.”

The Lion sighed and gingerly stood upright once more. “I can not tell you much much of a fuck I do not give, brother.” Azrael gasped aloud.

“But…Master, it was ever the duty of the Keeper of the Truth to fill the Vault—”

“—In the event that I did not return, brother,” El’Jonson said, keeping his voice level and free of censorship with a grand effort. “I quite clearly have.” He grinned faintly. “Don’t look so disappointed.” 

Sammael slowly turned to face his Chapter Master. Azrael looked utterly crushed, certainly not how he should have looked upon finding out that his Master had returned. El’Jonson must have grasped Sammael’s confusion, for he sank down the steel chair fitted to the wall behind him, and stared at the floor below him, as if seeing where he had nearly had his head caved in by Luther ten thousand years prior. Before he could explain however, a massive noise from beyond the chamber walls heralded the Deathwing. The first of the Terminator-clad giants entered the room in a rush, already speaking. “Lord Azrael, we have drawn together what lingers here of the First Compa…who the hell is that guy?”

Sammael turned to the Terminators, suppressing a smirk. “Can you not see that he is Lion El’Jonson himself, returned to us?”

The Terminator Captain glanced at the withered old man, the still-prostrate Librarian, Azrael, who looked to be on the verge of tears, and finally Sammael, who had failed entirely to suppress the smirk. “You’re shitting me, aren’t you? You’re so full of shit, your eyes are brown.” 

“As I was saying,” El’Jonson said loudly, then immediately looked to regret it, placing a hand on his forehead, “ah, blast, that stings like a mother’s bitch…Azrael, you have executed your task ably, but the time for further adherence to the Truth is concluded. I have returned to complete the role I abandoned when I lost to Luther.”

Azrael, among the most feared Space Marines in all the galaxy, slowly slumped his shoulders and nodded. “…Okay.”

The Lion shook his head again, and managed to keep from wincing. “The Emperor already filled me in on what has transpired. Not all of your…actions thus far have been…meritous, brother. Believe me, though, I would rather return from the vast sleeping death of the Rock to find you darkened than dead.”

He turned to Sammael, who was looking rather startled at that pronouncement, hastened to explain. “The Truth, brother, the fact the position of Truth Keeper was created to protect, was that I swore to the Emperor, as I lay dying in the Rock, to fill the Vault of the Watchers with the geneseed of The Fallen, and should I awake before the last of the Fallen are killed, then my oath has been broken.”

The Terminator Captain visibly stiffened at those words, and Azrael shuddered. El’Jonson let the mood hang in the air for a few seconds before smiling. “That said, I have been released from the Oath by our new Emperor. Actually,” he said off-handedly, ignoring the horrified gasps of the assembled Deathwing, “I guess he’s the same Emperor with a new body. Ah well, same thing, really. The teeth will take some getting used to.”