Queens Invictus

The Queens Invictus are the XVIIth Legion of the Emperor's Legiones Astartes known, and perhaps feared, for their furious zeal in battle; storming into the fray. Each and every one of the Legionaries is a warrior devoted to their Queen, Sura Getari, following every command she gives regardless of the cost for her authority is absolute. Under the Queen's rule, the Legion strives to be exemplars above all others in the arts of war; paragons of martial virtue and excellence, scorning those who did not meet their own, perhaps unattainable, standards. Ironically, for a Legion that claims to be noble; the Queens Invictus have a reputation for leaving battlefields stained with blood as warriors fall into a violent frenzy that the Queen only exhorts. While this is chalked up to a gene flaw, the truth is more darker; for Queen Sura Getari had a twin sister that did not live to see their reunion with the Emperor. Some whisper that the Queen herself personally saw to her twin's demise out of a desire for more power while others believe that Sura was, at first, the lesser twin and slew her sibling who had become a tyrant of the world they grew up on.

Whatever the truth may be, it is known only to the Queen and her closest circles who choose to keep the Legion in the dark of the dark secret; treating this source of a grief as a mere genetic flaw. Thus the Queens Invictus fought in the Great Crusade to bring the Emperor's dream across the Galaxy while at the same time unknowingly aiding their Queen in her drive for redemption and to was the blood of her sister off her hands. Alas, this quest would be derailed when the Emperor shed His Humanity and proclaimed Himself a God; ascending to a tyranny painfully reminiscent of Sura's sister. Thus the Queens Invictus became one of the Legions of the Resistance, fighting against the Tyrant Emperor's new regime.

The Mighty XVIIth
The XVII Legion's origin lay, as with their fellows, on Terra and the closing years of the Unification Wars. Extant records from this time show the XVII Legion's "Alpha" intake -- the test bed raising of several thousand warriors by which its gene-seed's stability and adaptability was judged -- was passed firmly within acceptable parameters and with no singular or notable physical mutation beyond the expected pattern, with full functionality of implanted organs to projected specifications.

Psycho-organically, Initiates were noted to display increased aggression, as was expected, but also a marked tendency towards cohesion and the adoption of hierarchy, alongside an almost pathological dedication to the achievement of an assigned goal. This would seem to be in part of their recruitment zones within the noble enclaves of Saragon and the proud Midafrik Hive Ogliarchy, who sought to make up for their initial resistance in the Unification Wars.

In them was found a mixture of aggression and restraint, discipline and determination which rendered them supremely suited for any command given to them. The Legion gained significant success in independence operations where it took direct command of secondary support forces of the Imperialis Auxilia, whether the professional and elite regiments of the Solar Auxilia and the regiments of the "Old One Hundred", or the often resentful and fractious hosts of Imperialis Militia auxiliary recently forced into Imperial Compliance.

Their own arts of war had evolved quickly from the tenets laid out during their indoctrination and training, becoming combined with influences drawn from the host of martial cultures from which they were founded. However the XVII did favour one theater of war above all; fighting amongst the open plains where they could see the enemy up close or from afar, fighting with modified Mark I helmets to better allow them to feel the wind of war on their faces. Many of the other Legions would joke that the 'Mighty XVII's' preference to go into war unhelmed was genetic, little did they know how close to the truth they were. When creating His seventeenth child, the Emperor looked to the history of Terra and knew of an ancient warrior queen who fought against an empire that killed her love and took her lands. Thus did the Emperor imbue His child with her fiery spirit and warrior strength. Yet even He did not expect the rise of the XVII Primarch or, rather, Primarchs.

The Queens
According to Imperial legend, the Emperor of Mankind created the Primarchs from artificially-engineered genes using his own genome as the original template, carefully imbuing each of them with unique superhuman powers. Imperial doctrine goes on to tell how the Ruinous Powers of Chaos spirited away the Primarchs within their gestation capsules, scattering them widely across the galaxy through the Warp.

More than one of the capsules was breached whilst it drifted through Warpspace -- the forces of the Immaterium leaked in, wreaking havoc on the gestating being inside the capsule. Undoubtedly damage was done and Chaos corruption affected several of the Primarchs, although the nature of that corruption would not become apparent until the Horus Heresy.

After drifting for solar decades, or in some cases even hundreds of Terran years, the twenty gestation capsules came to rest on human-settled worlds throughout the Milky Way Galaxy -- distant planets inhabited by a variety of human cultures, and whether by fickle fate or cruel design, each world would provide a crucible which would temper the child into the Primarch they would become, be that hero or monster, tyrant or liberator.

One such capsule fell upon the world of Stiya in the Eastern Fringe of the galaxy. Stiya was a bleak but not inhospitable world, part of a decayed star empire of ages past that Mankind had inhabited for many centuries since the time of the Dark Age of Technology. Its industries had survived intact, and its people lived under a long lived Monarchy. Furthermore, it had remarkably preserved a number of antiquated short range Warp-capable craft which could be utilised for near-stellar transit -- conditions permitting -- and its people continued to build sub-light spacecraft even during the time of the most intense Warp Storms. This had allowed the people of Stiya to maintain contact with several neighbouring human-settled star systems, despite the storms' fury, and so retain a tenuous link to the rest of human space and the knowledge that it was not alone in the darkness.

So it was that when the fallen capsule was discovered by a group of magnates who were on a hunt in a local forest, they knew it immediately for a device of advanced technology rather than a thing of superstition and magic. The magnates broke the capsule's seal and discovered a strikingly beautiful and perfectly formed pair of twin girls within it who were surrounded by a glowing nimbus of power. The girls were brought before Laranixos Getari, King of Stiya. Laranixos was long past even middle age and his wives bore no suitable children, and so he chose to take the twins in as his own. He named them Kenna and Sura.

The young Primarchs grew unnaturally quMickly and as they did so, their unique physical and mental powers became obvious to all. It is recorded that by the time of their tenth birthday, Kenna and Sura had mastered everything the wisest tutors of Stiya could teach them. They could recall anything and soon came to equal, if not shadow, their adoptive father in ability to rule

Their greatest talent, however, lay in the art of war, which was itself treated as a high and lauded science in Stiya culture. As soon as they proved themselves, Sura and Kenna were granted command of the King's army which they overhauled in both equipment and tactics. Thus when they marched into their first battle, they emerged overwhelmingly victorious. As time passed the twins slowly began to march in different directions as they learned to operate separately from each other; Kenna, the more reserved of the pair, remained near the borders of their Kingdom while Sura, the hot blooded sister, marched to expand them. Alas, this divide did more than just separate them across the land.

Kenna and Sura were above their peers in both mind and body; never seeming to age once they had grown to their full height. King Laranixos, however, was still mortal and he eventually died of old age without naming his heir. Despite not sharing his blood, the twins were still his daughters therefore the next in line to his throne. The trouble was that they were two successors to one throne and both sisters were of equal worth. Kenna was reserved and analytical yet she was cold and concerned only with the advancement of her power. On the other hand Sura was a warrior, hot blooded and more concerned with war than politics yet she had the respect of her armies and her name was lauded with countless honours. What happened next is heavily debated on; for some say that Kenna grew jealous of Sura's popularity and sought to remove her from the path to the throne while others claim Kenna was the popular one and Sura was jealous. Whatever the reason, a rift came between the sisters and an unseen struggle for the throne commenced. It would be Kenna who gained the upper hand, for through her manipulations she stirred a rebellion on a nearby word knowing full well Sura would move to crush it. Sura took the bait and, in her absence, allowed Kenna to assume a reign of tyranny over Stiya.

Unaware of what transpired on Stiya, Sura fought a brilliant campaign that saw the rebel world returned to the fold. Even so, it took months to complete. Thus when Sura returned to Stiya, she was not welcomed by cheers but by a hostile army sworn to Kenna. Though there had been bad blood between them for a while now, Sura at first would not believe her sister would deal in such treachery. However her shock did not take long to turn into rage and she fought her way through the streets of Mithri to reach Kenna. She confronted her sister in the throne room of their father and exchanged bitter words. It is unknown what they said nor how the following fight went but it ended with Sura emerging from the throne room; her two swords stained with the blood of her sister. Thus did Queen Sura Getari take the throne and begin to undo the tyranny of Kenna.

Even though in their final moments together she hated her sister, Sura soon began to know the heavy burden of grief and regret. By slaying Kenna she had killed a part of herself as well, forever cursed to feel an empty part of her soul. Though she did not know it at the time, this would effect her Legion as well. However the revelation would come in time, for the Emperor came in time.

The Emperor Arrives
Around the time that Sura ascended to the throne, the Emperor's Principia Imperialis fleet of the Great Crusade had reached the planet of Uros at the outer edge of the network of worlds with which Stiya had maintained tenebrous contact. Here the Emperor and the newly found Nissa D'Antioche learned of the existence of Stiya and the extraordinary Queen that ruled it, and from what He learned He knew that this child could be none other than a missing Primarch.

There have been some who have suggested that the Emperor's arrival at Uros and the isolated region so far from the frontline of the Great Crusade's main spur of progress was no accident, and that by some arts He had perceived or had foreknowledge of what He would find. Regardless, what followed was certainly not foreseen.

As the Emperor's fleet quickly moved on to Stiya, it was almost immediately deflected by violent Warp squalls which had risen up to separate Stiya and a handful of nearby systems from approach. Thwarted by a power even the Emperor could not readily ignore, it would be something in the region of five standard years before contact could be successfully attempted.

In the years that intervened, Stiya had undergone a striking transformation. It was now a world of uniformity and order, prosperous and productive. Its cities had been rebuilt in glittering marble and shining steel, and the serried ranks of its armies were well-armed and well-equipped, and outfitting themselves now for operations beyond their own world. Even so, there was an underlying brutality; for there were fields littered with hanging corpses of those who dared resisted the queen's rule and her armies, for all their splendor, were bloodthirsty and fearsome.

It is said that when the Emperor saw what His lost daughter had wrought, He was indeed pleased, and that He met with Sura Getari without the dissembling that had been needed with those Primarchs He had found of more savage timbre. It is further recorded that once Getari learned the truth of her origins, she did not take long to swear fealty to the Emperor who she recognised to not only be a mighty ruler but her true Father as well.

Yet she did not celebrate completely; for she could see the same coldness in Him that she saw in Kenna. However she did not speak of this, for she feared what He might do should she reveal that she not had a sister but one she had slain by her own hand. She saw an example of the Emperor's brutal streak quickly.

Finding the XV
When the Emperor and His newly found daughter left the borders of Stiya, word reached Him of resistance on a backwater planet named Ankur Primaris. This seemingly pitiful world was making the Imperial forces bleed at the hands of an extraordinary individual who ruled Ankur, naming himself 'Mirror Face' or Agnarak. The Emperor quickly deduced Agnarak to be another of His lost children and made haste to Ankur Primaris.

They arrived in the midst of the Ankurites' assault on the Imperials' fortifications, the rebels so spurred by the gigantic brute with a mirrored face that even the arrival of Astartes and Custodes did not sway them from fighting. Sura came upon the so called Mirror Face first, her twin blades clashing with the large sword Agnarak called his own; but could not hope to stand against the enraged giant who was goaded into a fury by the Emperor's voice in his ear calling for him to stand down. Agnarak called out for the voice to reveal itself and found a quick answer. The Emperor Himself appeared before Agnarak and offered one final chance to stand down peacefully. Agnarak spat a curse in reply and charged he who claimed to be his father.

To the Emperor, the blade of the Primarch cut through the air in slow motion, like it was moving through a thick gel. Time itself seemed to slow to a crawl. The talking Primarchs slowed, their jaws stopping mid-speeches. Blood dripping and pouring from the wounded froze where it was. Even the sounds of distant war stopped, leaving only eerily silence.

For all purposes, time itself had stopped and yet the Emperor moved as if it hadn't. The blade of the Primarch was mere millimetres away from striking him. Casually, he side stepped it, walked behind the Primarch, and raised his claw, and grabbed.

To onlookers, the Emperor was about to be hacked apart by the Primarch's blade. Then the Emperor was gone, faster than any of the Primarchs could hope to track, seemingly popping into existence directly behind Agnarak. The Emperor would grab the back of the Primarch, who could note the movement of the Emperor, and lifted him as casually a child lifts a toy.

The Emperor swung the still swinging Primarch and slammed him into the rockcrete with enough force for dust to kick up and for stone to be pulverized. Remains of the street scattered into the air, kicking up a blinding dust cloud. And finally, the explosion from the impact sounded, the Emperor moving so fast and swift that sound had finally caught up. The explosion was as loud as an artillery strike, and the shockwave buffeted everyone, forcing them to brace.

When the dust cleared, Agnarak would be in a shallow crater, his armour shattered, bones broken, and his sword no where to be seen.

The Emperor would have not a mark upon him.

Sura and Nissa were stunned into silence. To think, this may well have been their fate if they had pursued violence against Him. Part of Nissa argued that Agnarak had brought this upon himself, but to think that her father was so willing to resort to this kind of violence against one of His own children after only a brief exchange, was truly a dark thought, and one she did not wish to contemplate. Is this what would happen to anyone who denied her father? To end up bloody and broken beyond belief by the fist of the Imperium, and only then be welcomed into it? How could The Emperor resort to such violence to bring Agnarak into the fold? This was the man who had made entire armies surrender with nothing but poems, right? Why was Agnarak beyond that? Everyone was asked to look up to The Emperor but He had to brutalize a man and force him into compliance. He had failed to find a peaceful resolution to the conflict he had so ruthlessly started.

Yet Agnarak revealed he was not yet done. Despite every bone in his body being shattered, he rose up and attempted to attack the Emperor again. The Emperor merely struck his son down again, and commanded his unconscious form taken back to Terra.

And so it came to pass that Sura witnessed the same tyranny she witnessed in Kenna, only that the Emperor's was far worse.