Story:Bleeding Out: The Lost Chapters.

The following article is a /tg/ related story or fanfic. Should you continue, expect to find tl;dr and an occasional amount of awesome.

The bastard progeny of Someone else's piece of Writefaggotry Bleeding Out.

Part One

The Shot heard round the World

Professor Ahzek Ahriman sat at his writing desk, a pile of essays on Warp Translation sitting untouched at his side. He’d already gone through them mentally, and it filled him with dismay. Barely half the class had done it right, and he despaired ever succeeding teaching them about the Great Ocean. It was their birth right as an evolving race, and these kids couldn’t even master the basics. Grunting, he reached down to pour himself a much needed cup of Wine. As he reached down, he felt something tugging at his body of light and next thing he knew his vision was full of Light, flickers of fire that burst briefly to life and then vanished just as quickly. What had happened to him? He had to be in the Great Ocean, for where else could he be, and yet he had not gone through the enumerations or anything of the sort. His Lord Magnus could sail the Great Ocean better than anyone save the Emperor, and he wished his lord could be here to explain what had just happened to him. His vision cleared, and he found himself in a bare concrete cell-like room, with one steel door and a single open window, an example of hab building at its most horrific. Before him stood a man, fitting together a stub rifle with a telescopic scope. Thoughts went through that man’s mind as he examined it. It looked good. Useful. Ready. Ahriman tried to recover his bearings and make sense of what was going on around him. Was this the future or the past? It was impossible to tell with any certainty. Visions in the aether were shaped as much by the viewer as they were by the Great Ocean. Judging by the poster of the Emperor shaking hands with Eldrad Ulthran across the road outside, it was post crusade at least, and given the architecture, it seemed to be somewhere within the Imperial Palace on Terra. Ahriman let his spirit float outside the cell-like room, in order to find out more about this vision. Outside, across a busy ground road was a small café, one of many which had sprung up across Terra now that the Crusade was over. The day was warm, as warm as it could be in the smog-choked atmosphere of Terra, and Ahriman felt a sickening chill cross him. He knew exactly where it was, across the Atalantic plains from the Palace where he had left his physical form, half a continent away. It was then he noticed the two figures seated at a nearby table. He knew exactly who they were, and in that moment he knew exactly what was about to happen. Spiteful laughter and a deep phlegmy cackle wove around him in a symphony of hate as some unseen monster glorified in what was happening. The laugh chilled Ahriman to the bone, it felt like the call of some dark power beyond his comprehension. Ahriman tried to extract himself from this vision, but try as he might; it had an impenetrable hold on him. He could only watch in bullet time as the heavy stub round slowly sailed across the void, heading for its target with deadly precision. For what seemed an eternity it sailed along. The gunshot, though many thousands of miles away, echoed throughout his mind, throwing Ahriman’s subtle body back into his physical form. He found himself sprawled out on the floor, the wine glass smashed at his side. In a flutter of papers he pulled himself up, grabbed his Heqa staff and sprinted for the door as fast as his transhumant body would allow him.

Julius Pius sat at his writing desk, composing a datafax on the Jzhao Li campaign of the Great Crusade for Professor Qrutz. He had the house to himself for once, his father had been sent on a war bond tour of the Cadian Gate after the latest Daemonic Incursion on the world of Malin’s Reach, and Isis was off searching for a University to study at after graduation along with Lyra. She’d already messaged him a few times, and he smiled at the memory of her last one from Alye University in Merica. She seemed to be dragging her heels, her heart was not quite into choosing a University, be it on Terra or offworld somewhere. Wherever she went, he would go too; to spur her on and keep them both at the peak. Theirs was not the steady relationship of Jake and Venus, or the passionate one of Michael and Angela. Theirs was based on two people, both living in the shadow of their famous fathers and striving to live up to their example, both wanting to be the best and pushing the other as hard as they pushed themselves. In a way, it was almost as masochistic as Kevin and Furia. Grumbling, he finished the final entry on the siege of Zhaoi Fortress, and closed the Datafax. He’d done enough work for today. He got up and went over to check his Vox, see if there was anything more from Isis. Glancing down at it, he sighed to notice another message from Faith Aurelian. Someone, and he blamed the Twins, had given Faith the idea that not only was his father the most famous non-Astartes in the entire Imperium, but he was also a biological son of the Emperor, a so-called Perpetual. For weeks she had been pestering him about it, until it became almost unbearable being in her presence. Worse, the twins were joking that if Faith was correct, then he himself was a grandchild of the Emperor in the same way as the daughters, making his relationship with Isis incestuous, something which made him deeply uncomfortable. It couldn’t be true, another attempt by the Twins to mask the fact they were very bad at relationships. The videlink screamed out, breaking his trance. Muttering under his breath, he got up and went over to answer it. He idly wondered who would be calling him at this time of the morning. “Julius?” It was James, Farah’s current squeeze and a gearhead of the highest magnitude. He was breathless, and spat words out like a Punisher Gatling Gun on full auto. But those words were every bit as damaging as the bullets of a Punisher. “Turn on the Holovision quick, one of the Daughter’s has been shot!”

“Look, I can assure you I’m fine. Terra is strange and amazing, and the Imperials treat me well. The Daughters of the Primarchs in particular have been most kind, especially Miss Isis.” Johor Tull’s Aria whistled and hummed as he talked on the Videlink with his father Mithras, showing his honesty in pure binaric, to reassure his father further that he was fine. Six months he had been on Terra, and in that time he had absorbed a lot about the customs of the Imperium, and absorbed many lessons he would take back with him to the Interex. He was sitting in the Astropathic Building of Hive Tetra, one of the small hives which had sprouted on the plains between Merica and the Europan Hives, which had once been an ancient ocean now long since boiled away. This particular Astropathic block was set up against the side of the hive, an Armourglass window looking outside the hive towards the outlying suburbs. For a few seconds he idly stared out at the view. For a planet choked in thousands of years of pollutants and rampant global warming, it sure was beautiful. Suddenly there was a sharp ‘crack’ which cut through the air. His father, thousands of light years away, reacted immediately. “Was that a gunshot?”