Anyway, here goes!
Ignatius plodded across the ruins of Tizca, each of his steps not merely weighed down by his heavy Terminator armor plating, but also the scene of devastation that he was currently bearing witness too. After all those millennia of planning and rebuilding in the Planet of Sorcerers, to see the once great city leveled by orbital bombardment...it was disheartening. He closed his eyes briefly, the echo of memories from the time of the Great Heresy...when the Wolves came. Back then, he had also fought in these streets against the hateful Space Wolves, who came as executioners to destroy Prospero.
Prospero...at least the Grey Knights and their Dark Angels allies had not touched their first homeworld. Prospero remained unblemished, already in the advanced stages of the Crimson King's rebuilding process. The Thousand Sons's fleet had been located in orbit above Prospero, and for some reason held their position instead of flying out to intercept the two Adeptus Astartes Strike Cruisers that hung over Sortiarius.
"Father," he greeted the one-eyed monarch who sat over the destruction of the ritual site. Magnus was currently in his gigantic, red-fleshed form, his wings drooped over the razed rockcrete that formerly stretched across the Tizcan temple. The burned remains of mortals, mutants and Sorcerers were gradually disappearing, almost as if the Daemon Planet was devouring them. The Daemon Primarch set his solitary eye on him. "The capture of the Loyalists proceeds well."
"I know," Magnus replied flatly. Ignatius was surprised to hear that there was no anger, no resentment and no bitterness in his lord's melodic voice. The lone eye that was fixed upon the Sekhmet Sorcerer appeared to be gazing into nowhere and everywhere at the same time. "Bring them to my palace."
"It will be done, Father."
"Well done, my son." Magnus favored Ignatius with a fatherly smile. Despite the seemingly warm expression, the High Magister couldn't suppress a chill. As one of the Rehati, he had always been one of Magnus's favored sons, though less so than even that Exile Ahriman. However, with such treatment came great responsibility, and those of the Rehati who failed their Primarch were handed punishments much worse than any of the ordinary Sorcerers could ever imagined. Casting a glance at the smoking bodies and the ruins of the temple, Ignatius tapped into the Warp and drew its power. Visions flooded his mind's eye, unbound. Before this, Magnus had requested that Ignatius, along with the rest of the Rehati, to each offer a cadre of Sorcerers. Those Sorcerers were now gone, blasted into oblivion by the Grey Knights' orbital lance strike.
That the Ritual failed this time...Ignatius could not help but shudder at the implications.
"We did not fail," Magnus said. Ignatius almost jumped, and then realized that his father did not have to read his mind to tell what he was thinking. The Daemon Primarch offered a malevolent smile. "If anything, we succeeded."
"My lord?" Ignatius ventured, uncertain. "Our enemies have halted the Ritual. It will take a long time to gather the sacrifices and Sorcerers needed to perform it a second time...to undergo all those processes from..."
"Don't forget who we are, my son. We are the Thousand Sons. The masters of time...we have all the time in the universe."
Magnus rose to his feet, his angelic wings spreading outward. Blue and red feathers seemed to flutter downward, the empyrean substances combusting into daemonic flames before they could touch the ground. The Primarch turned to cast his eye in the direction where silent ranks of Scarab Occult Terminators were forcibly herding abandoned Grey Knights and Dark Angels toward one of the greatest pyramids of Tizca. Ignatius was also capable of projecting his astral senses toward the distance, for his own cabal of Scarab Occult Terminators were carrying out his instructions and shepherding a battered squad of Grey Knight Terminators forward, into the pyramid.
Once, the great pyramid had been a thing of beauty, constructed of glass and conforming to patterns of superlative logic and esoteric forms. Now, it was a warped structure, its angles contorted to formulae that screamed against rationality, and its mysticism was seeped in daemonic malevolence. The accursed Loyalists who were being brought there were aware of how...wrong the structure was. Even from here, Ignatius could sense their trepidation, their apprehension and...wariness. Not fear. Never fear. From the beginning when the Emperor first conceived of the Adeptus Astartes in His personal laboratories, He had decreed that they shall know no fear. But...uncertainty. Hesitation. Anxiety. These emotions were not...could not be removed, and Ignatius savored those sensations.
They would pay for disrupting the Ritual. No doubt Magnus had the appropriate punishments for them in mind. He would inflict upon them the most cruelest and twisted tortures that would surpass even the greatest imaginations...
"No."
The Crimson King turned to look at Ignatius, that godly and chilling smile still splayed across his red face.
"I have other plans for them."
"Father?" Ignatius blinked, and even though his face was clad behind Terminator helmet, he was sure that Magnus could clearly see his confusion.
"Why did you think I allowed the Grey Knights and Dark Angels to descend upon our world?" Magnus asked, catching him off guard. "It would be but an easy matter for me to call in our fleet and obliterate their two Strike Cruisers from existence, but I ordered Ra to remain in orbit above Prospero."
Ignatius nodded. High Magister Ra was the de facto admiral of the Thousand Sons fleet, assigned the honor by the Crimson King himself to take charge of the XV Legion's naval assets. He listened to no one but Magnus, and if he had been told to hold position above Prospero instead of intercepting the two strike cruisers, then...
"I allowed them to run amok in our world...to give them the impression that they succeeded in disrupting my Ritual. I put on a great show - I gathered thousands...no, tens of thousands of mortals in this temple, I created an audience of unprecedented magnitude...because I needed to convince them that they succeeded in halting my Ritual."
"And they did, did they not?" Ignatius asked, bewildered. "They destroyed the site, killed so many of our brethren and massacred our followers."
"Ignatius, Ignatius." Magnus shook his head, his grizzly mane swaying gently from the movement. "Even now you still have not realized? How can a Prince of the Great Schemer be out-schemed himself? I could have halted their orbital bombardment with a single finger. I could have reached out and smash their two strike cruisers together with just a single hand gesture. Did it not occur to you that I allowed them to get away?"
He reached out and pointed a finger at one of the Dark Angels being paraded by Rubric automatons. The Space Marine went rigid, his body combusting from the inside out. His green power armor slumped down as its wearer literally disintegrated within it. While the other Dark Angels flinched, they were held at bay by the emotionless automatons of the Thousand Sons, the Rubric Marines pointing their inferno boltguns at the disarmed Astartes to stay whatever act of defiance they planned to play. Aspiring Sorcerers and Scarab Occult Sorcerers used arcane magicks to immobilize them, and telekinetically shoved them forward when necessary.
The surviving Dark Angels glared in the direction of Magnus, but they knew they would not be able to enact their dark vengeance upon their chief tormentor. The Crimson King merely chuckled under the weight of their glares, more amused than intimidated. As if to prove his point, he extinguished the life of a second Astarte, causing his fellow Space Marines to roar in impotent rage.
"See? How easy it is for me to crush these...insects. But I allowed them to flee back to their hive, to spread the news of their victory."
"Why would you do that?" Ignatius asked, astonished.
"So that they won't be able to stop the real Ritual," Magnus replied, his Machiavellian smile still causing the High Magister's spine to constrict. "Now that we have our real sacrifices, we can truly begin."
"Real sacrifices...?" Ignatius turned to look at the rows of Dark Angels and Grey Knights.
Then he understood.
"Sacrificing ninety-nine Loyalist dogs will bring about a more potent outcome than offering nine thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine mortals, don't you think?" The Crimson King's grin grew wider. "More so if a good portion of them is made out of the Imperium's most powerful Sanctioned Psykers. Psykers who have been trained to control their power more exquisitely and skillfully than the rabble of recently awakened mortals seeking refuge with us. Besides, I would much rather reward my followers for their loyalty and faith than sacrifice them."
"That's why you called the Grey Knights here...you sent them those visions and deliberately leaked part of your plan to them..."
"You're finally seeing the bigger picture, my son." Magnus placed a taloned hand upon the High Magister's thick Terminator shoulder pad. "I have always originally intended to lure the Grey Knights here, and to my delight they brought the Dark Angels as well. The more sacrifices we have, the better."
The Crimson King rose to his full height, his great wings unfurling to send feathers of empyrean fire fluttering once more.
"Now that all of my pieces have fallen perfectly into place...there will be no one in the Imperium capable of halting the Psychic Awakening of Mankind."
Insert "Just as planned" meme here.
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