The Grandfather's Help

Nurgle's Garden-

The once-lush garden now looked to Bona like a cesspit of rotten wood, sludge, poisonous gas, and all manner of disgusting insects.

So the instant they teleported in, Bona instinctively used Psyker Power to raise a psychic barrier around everyone, even considerately blurring the scene before their eyes.

Even so, Arlith immediately dropped to her knees and threw up the dinner she had eaten two nights earlier.

The Thunder Warriors fared somewhat better. The Rebel Company had encountered plenty of Nurgle's forces over the past ten thousand years, but their first visit to Nurgle's Garden still nearly proved too much for them.

"Ah, child, you've come back?" Rotigus the Rainfather asked delightedly.

Bona fought to keep his face from twitching and managed an exceedingly strained smile, ignoring the almost roaring voice in his head.

"Yes. I'm looking for the Grandfather. Is he here?"

"He is. Of course he is."

Rotigus rang the bell by the entrance.

"The child has brought guests home!"

Nurgle's Garden immediately erupted in celebration.

Meanwhile, everyone inside the psychic barrier was on the verge of breaking down.

It was like sitting in a glass room with completely frosted windows, watching someone outside blast sewage at you with a pressure washer.

Bona steeled himself and endured the entire journey, suppressing the urge to crush the Nurglings to death as he made his way to the familiar cauldron.

Nurgle's Garden

Then that vast, imposing figure appeared before them.

"It's good to see you again, child," the Grandfather said with a smile.

"Y... yes. It's good to see you all too."

"Oh, wait a moment. It's been so long since I last saw you, and you look much thinner. Let me make you something to eat."

"No need!"

Bona smiled at the Grandfather's puzzled look.

"I'm not hungry. I mainly came to ask you for a favor."

"Ask away, my child," the Grandfather said, setting down his ladle and watching him with a warm smile.

"It's... to make a body for me. I don't need another soul. I already have one here."

The Grandfather looked at Bona in puzzlement, then swept his senses over him and understood everything.

"Ah, that rebellious child. I never thought he would still be around."

"You're as modest as ever. Helping siblings reunite isn't a favor. It's what we ought to do."

"Come, let me help you."

Just as the Grandfather reached out with his psyker power to take the frantically shrieking Horus away, Bona pinned him in place with his own power.

"Um... nothing extra. Just the way he originally was."

The Grandfather looked a little puzzled, but his expression soon returned to a kindly smile.

Children having ideas of their own was perfectly normal.

When the group emerged from Nurgle's Garden, there was one more person among them, a man so tall that even the Thunder Warriors looked short beside him.

Even clad in nothing but a simple hemp robe, that towering figure could not conceal the nobility of his physique.

Horus dry-heaved all the way, inspecting his body as he went, then retching again whenever he caught his own scent.

Although the Thunder Warriors and the Inquisitor said nothing, they quietly moved aside, their faces full of disgust.

If it had been disgust for "Horus, the heinous traitor," he might not have felt anything.

But their expressions could be summed up as, "You stink. Get away from us."

That left Horus so ashamed that he almost wanted to find a crack in the ground to crawl into. Even his childhood days living among gangs had never subjected him to humiliation like this.

If time could turn back, Horus would never have had that sudden lapse of judgment and spoken to Bona. He would have stayed out of sight rather than crawling out of Nurgle's stinking gutter.

Thankfully, at least Nurgle had not added any extra "ingredients" to Horus. He even felt that this body worked better than his old one.

While Horus wrestled with his conflicted feelings, Bona turned to Inquisitor Arlith.

"By the way, do you have a ship?"

Arlith shook her head, while Captain Dakan beside her looked deeply embarrassed.

"I'm sorry, Your Highness. The Imperial Navy destroyed our ship before we entered the Warp. We escaped into it aboard a Thunderhawk."

Bona pressed a hand to his forehead, a headache coming on.

Uh...

Now this really was a problem.

Even between them, none of them could operate a ship. Forcing their way out of the Warp into realspace might well leave them embedded in a wall.

Suddenly, Bona noticed a ship passing through the turbulent currents of the Warp.

And emblazoned upon that ship was the glorious Imperial Aquila.

Following Bona's gaze, the others also spotted the Lunar-class Cruiser adrift in the Warp.

"We have a ship now."

The Righteous Protector-

"Commodore, are we still unable to leave the Warp?"

"I'm afraid so, Admiral Spire. There's no telling where the Warp currents have swept us."

A man whose chest was covered in medals sat in the command seat on the bridge. His hair was white, but his eyes held a resolve as hard as steel.

Spire, the Imperial Navy's tough guy

Admiral Spire of the Imperial Navy, a great hero of the Gothic War.

He had been lost in the turbulent currents of the Warp for an unknown length of time. The evil Chaos Gods toyed with him like a die, and the holy Emperor's radiance could not reach this place.

He tapped his fingers lightly against the armrest in impatience, his thoughts unreadable.

Still, since they could not serve the Emperor at present, this at least counted as a rare holiday.

But that holiday was shattered in an instant by the shrill alarms on the bridge.

"Admiral, we've detected a powerful psychic signature heading straight for us!" Commodore Cage suddenly shouted.

"The energy fluctuations are enormous. Our countermeasures have failed..."

Almost instantly, a burst of light exploded across the bridge.

When the light faded, a towering figure and several comparatively shorter figures stood on the bridge.

Admiral Spire stared at that face, one practically engraved upon Chaos warships, then shifted his gaze to the Inquisitor below it and the group of oversized Astartes clad in battered power armor.

"The Rebel Company."

"Maxen."

"The enemy has boarded us!"