Chapter Text
The 21st son of the Emperor of man was confused, upset, and all around not having a good day. The Hammer of Mankind , his Gloriana - class vessel, had just translated out of warp, and according to the auspices, the fickle tides of The Warp had spat his ship out in the second Millennium.
“Shipmaster,” his voice rang out across the cavernous bridge, “care to explain to me why I’m looking at Terra in M3?”
“Sir.” The shipmaster had been serving him for a long time. Long enough that she was one of the few that could openly talk back to the Primarch without fear of repercussion. “It would seem that The Warp has decided to play a game with us. If I was to make a suggestion, I would say that it might be a wise idea to make planetfall and try to find the Emperor.”
“A good suggestion. I will act upon it. Tell my men to meet me in the teleportarium.” The armored juggernaut turned and began the process of leaving.
“As you say sir.” A vox message reached out to a number of space marines and a single Contemptor class dreadnaught.
Upon entering the teleportarium, the primarch looked over the men that he had plucked from the surface of Istvaan III and other places moments before their deaths. Each one fiercely loyal to his father, and loyal to him. He’d asked them to dive headfirst into Hell with him, and each time, they stepped to his side. He knew each and every one of them. Who they had served. Who they were. Their hopes, their dreams, their ambitions. Annovuldi, formerly of the fourth legion, Iron warriors, conversed with Saul Tarvitz, formerly of the Third Legion, Emperor’s Children. Kasati Nuon stood in a corner with Molor, watching their battle brothers speak and stand ready for their orders to be issued.
“Men. It seems that the tides of The Warp have deemed to spit us out long before my father revealed himself to humanity. Thus, I will make planetfall alone and attempt to find him. You will keep the Hammer on the far side of Luna, but be ready to descend at a moment’s notice at my orders. You will see what I see. It is highly likely that the people of this Terra are not like the people that we are familiar with. Thus, we must keep an open mind.” He stepped forward onto the central platform and made the sign of the aquila to his men.
Each of them made it back before answering in one voice. “By your will, we shall be redeemed.”
The light flashed, and he stood on the surface of the world. His suit gave readings, placing him in the northern part of a country named Japan. The air was breathable, and the ambient temperature stood at about ten degrees celsius. He reached up and removed his helmet, stowing it away in the dimensional pocket that mad necron had given him in exchange for a rather strange promise. Now that they were in a world so unlike the Terra he knew, he doubted that the museum curator would be able to retrieve his body. He watched the area around him and let the senses he developed in the forests of Caliban search for signs of human habitation. He felt it to his south, a not insignificant distance away, and began walking toward what had given off the radiance that had shone to his eyes in the Inmaterium.
After two-and-a-half days of walking, he saw the lights of a city. He decided to enter cautiously, letting Corvus’ and Alphirus’ power flow over him, removing himself from notice. To those that did notice him, he seemed like just any other person walking home from work. He watched the crowds, letting his own psychic presence lightly brush over the people, extracting the layout of the city and other details that would serve him well. It seemed that people on this Terra had strange abilities similar to psykers, but they did not seem to stem from The Warp. Some caused major physical mutations that would have them executed in the Imperium. He would have to train his men to not attack them on sight.
He tried to make sure that his psychic touch was feather light, only copying the information that he needed before moving on. The one thing that he would always take note of, though, was each person’s “quirk”—the name they had given to their psyker abilities. Some seemed more adapted to certain things then others, but it would have been an oversight to not gather all the tactical information that he could so that if a fight broke out, he would be the best informed.
He continued on, learning that just as at home in the Imperium, not everyone was a good person. Some used their abilities for great good, while others did things that would make the accursed forces of the traitors swell in size. He passed over one mind, not really paying any more attention, and heard a yell directed at him. He spun quickly and registered that a man was charging him. Near instantly, instincts picked out the most important details. The man’s name was Kazehaya Atsuta. His quirk allowed him to compress air into a small space and unleash it with concussive force. Options for weapons cycled through his mind, taking into account the people around him and what each one did. His best option was the Hand of Dominion, the powerfist belonging to his brother Roboute. Deciding that the field generators would cause too much collateral damage and civilian casualties, he simply stepped forward and used his own hand to strike the attacker. He had overestimated how much strength he would need to use and destroyed the man’s head, fragments of bone, as well as blood and brain tissue splattering him, and his gear.
He observed the crowd’s reaction psychically. As he expected from them, they began to panic. There was only one who didn’t, a shorter man with dark hair and a red jacket. He was watching him with suspicion. Clouds of purple smoke burst forth from the man and he was advancing at a rapid pace. His doubts about the man having the strength to move him were dispelled as the man grabbed him by the wrist and yanked him into a nearby alley. “What the fuck was that.”
The bolt pistol mag locked to his thigh was in his hand and pointed at the man in the space of a breath. “That was me enacting self defense. I was attacked. I defended myself. It is regrettable that he died, but it couldn’t be helped. Now then,” He scanned the man’s mind, looking for his name and powers. “En, you are closer to being a psyker than anyone I have observed here. Care to explain what is going on? Want to explain that to me?”
En stared back at him. “Who are you… no… what are you?”
He lets the powers release. He grows to his full size, black Aurumite plate seeming to absorb the sunlight, necrodermis accents glittering as the cape unravels with a sound similar to bones tapping on each other “I am Revelation. I am the twenty-first son of the Emperor of Man, beloved by all. I lead the legion of the Abandoned and lost. I have been brought to your world by a fickle tide of the Warp, and I am stranded here until further notice. I hold no ill will towards you, but if you continue to act like this, I will have no choice but to use lethal force.” The declaration is clear and holds no room for argument.
He stared down at the much shorter man, watching, waiting. His own psychic senses reaching for The Warp energy to smite this man that stood before him. Power crackled at his fingertips, the air growing oppressive as faint breezes swirled around them, ghostly whispers filled the air, and the sharp smell of ozone filled the space between them. The single face on his armor’s pauldron began to weep bloody tears as the standoff reached an almost breaking point.
En stared at him, seemingly weighing his options. Revelation had already considered them. The smoke En had created earlier would act as a very brief distraction, and the strength would be helpful, but ultimately futile, as he would be unable to get through the armor before the bolts reduced him to fragments of meat and bone. “Fine. You can go, but you should make yourself as unseen as possible.”
The now-named Revelation placed the pistol back onto his leg. It stayed there, despite no visible holster. The oppressive weight in the air dissipated, and the face stopped crying. “Very well then. It is good that we have come to an agreement.”
He turned and left the alley, vanishing into the crowd and out of En’s sight.
The Interim
Revelation had been walking Earth for years now. He’d seen all manner of people and quirks. He’d made a brief trip back to the
Hammer
to ensure that the hypno indoctrination was taking in his marines. He was very pleased to see that it had only taken about ten years for the old programming to have been overwritten by his new orders. As he couldn’t totally remove the original indoctrination that had been implanted, so he had to settle for making sure that unless provoked, his men wouldn’t open fire on mutation quirks upon seeing them for the first time.
It was strange that he stood on Terra, in a world without his father. It had come as quite the shock to learn that his father simply did not exist in this world. It had taken a globe-spanning trip, searching in all the places he had been taught about. Milan, London, New York, Berlin, and Moscow. All places where his father had created safe havens. And not a single one could be found. In a last-ditch attempt to find the Emperor, Revelation climbed Mount Everest, the place where Dorn would one day build the palace, and unleashed a physic sonar pulse. Had there been any life forms in this galaxy that felt The Warp, he would have felt the ripples in the great sea.
But there was nothing. No Hrud, no Alderi, no Orks, no Slaugth, and even no Necrons. A place where the malignant tumors on reality that called themselves gods did not exist in the forms he knew. They were almost honorable things. It confused him to no end. How could humanity arise in such a place and have not already advanced farther than they stood now?
Revelation had been lucky he had been alone when he learned of his father’s nonexistence from atop the Himalayan peak. He had broken down, raged and wept. The proud mountain was pitted with craters of his creation now. It had taken him almost a week of sitting atop the mountain in the intense cold, watching sunsets and sunrises, watching the sun glitter off the snow and ice, and contemplation of his own existence to recover his composure.
It took a lot to be capable of even giving Revelation pause for a moment. He was the best part of each of his brothers, with almost none of their flaws. But even though he was a masterwork, there were still flaws within him.
He checked the bank account and was happy with the balance that it displayed. He mentally patted himself on the back for coming up with not only a way to make money, but also cover his tracks if he ever needed to make a demonstration out of someone. He had ordered Kasati to write about his time in the Night Lords. How they operated, how they fought, and how they killed in graphic detail. They had sold well, better than he’d hoped, actually, and had given the legion a rather comfortable operating budget. He’d made sure to purchase a sizable piece of land in Japan, partly because it was where he’d first made planetfall, partly because he wanted to keep an eye on that En fellow.
A few years after he’d met En, he died and passed on his quirks to someone else. To all of Revelation’s knowledge up to that point, it was impossible to do so, but he decided that it would be a good idea to be on good terms with whoever had it. She reacted better than her predecessor, but he hadn't exploded someone’s head in front of her so that probably helped a bit. Her name was Nana Shimura, and he made sure to keep a close eye out for anyone that could possibly serve as a replacement should she fall in battle. It wasn’t long after he revealed his own existence that she found and trained the next bearer of the quirk, which he had learned was called One For All. He’d also used Ursinus’ expertise at infiltrating governments to get him access to damn near every secret Japan had. If he cared to, he could issue any order and make it look like the chairman of the HPSC had signed off on it.
The only thing he really used that access to do, though, was to keep up with the hero world. It would leave him woefully unprepared to face the world if he didn’t know who and what the powers of the major players were. It seemed that Nana’s successor had taken on the name All Might. He had spent several years in the United States, but when he returned, Revelation revealed himself and told him that he was watching from the shadows, always ready to find a person to inherit One For All, but also willing to intervene under dire circumstances.
Another thing he did in the intervening years was to slowly and carefully bring down each of his marines. He’d started with Nuon, mostly because it was easier for him to write on Terra rather than on the Hammer . The rest followed, slowly, but some exercised the gifts that their primarch had given them. Annovuldi and Aleph were bitter rivals until Revelation quite literally knocked their heads together to force them to try to get along, much like he’d wished to do to their gene-fathers. They fortified the compound, Annovuldi used his knowledge to siege it, and they would improve the defenses. The rest of his Marines trained, swapped stories, and did what they had done in their leisure time back when they all served under the Emperor. Years passed, and wealth grew. Saul Tarvitz integrated himself into society and became a fairly prominent name to those who followed the path of the sword, becoming an artist and even a teacher. Capitalizing on his transhuman physiology, he even trained and became a fully-licensed hero, albeit an underground one.