Hathor Maat - Ark Reach Cluster Campaign: The Ark Reach Cluster had been discovered by the Word Bearers Legion's 47th Expeditionary Fleet; it was a group of binary stars occupied by a number of belligerent human planetary empires that rejected the Imperium's offer to become part of the Emperor's growing demesne.This Imperial Compliance action of the Great Crusade was carried out through the combined efforts of the Thousand Sons working in concert with elements from the Space Wolves and the Word Bearers Legions. The first four star systems fell to the Word Bearers and Space Wolves. But the fifth and sixth proved more difficult, especially on the world of Helios, the cardinal world of the Avenian Empire.The Avenians were graceful and fine-boned, their facial features sharp and angular, like the mountains in which they lived. Their bodies appeared weak and fragile, but that was a lie. Autopsies had discovered bones that were flexible and strong, and their armour was augmented with fibre-bundle muscles not dissimilar to those within Astartes Power Armour.Ark Reach Secundus was the Imperial Cartographe designation for this world, a convenient label that began the process of assimilation before envoys were even despatched or shots fired in anger. Its people called it Heliosa, but the Imperial Army had another name for it, a name synonymous with the razor-beaked killers that were the bane of soldiers forced to assault the aerie fortresses. They called it "Shrike."The Thousand Sons soon proved to be instrumental in breaking open the defences of the Ark Reach Cluster, their additional weight of force tipping the balance of war in favour of the Imperium. While the Word Bearers quelled the civilian population of outlying mountain cities, the Thousand Sons cleared a path for the Space Wolves to deliver the deathblow to the heart of the Avenian Empire. Only the settlement of Phoenix Crag remained and the world would be brought into successful Compliance.The Primarchs had met the previous evening to discuss how best to assault Phoenix Crag, Leman Russ and Lorgar were both eager to utterly eradicate the city, though for very different reasons. Russ simply because it stood against him, Lorgar because its ignorance of the Emperor offended him. It would be hard to imagine three more different brothers: Russ with the bestial mask he thought fooled everyone with its bellicose savagery, and Lorgar with his altogether subtler mask that hid a face even Magnus could not fully discern.They had spoken long into the night, each of his brothers vying for the upper hand. Phoenix Crag would not be like the other mountain cities of Heliosa, its records destroyed, its artefacts smashed and its importance forgotten. Magnus would save the history of this isolated outpost of humanity, and reclaim its place in the grand pageant of human endeavour. This world had survived the nightmare of Old Night, and deserved no less.The following day both the Thousand Sons and Space Wolves Legions, each led by their respective Primarchs, assaulted the final bastion of resistance. Ahzek Ahriman's 1st Fellowship linked with Hathor Maat's 3rd Fellowship in a gorge of artisans' workshops, and scout elements of the Prospero Spireguard joined them in a region of hollowed-out silo peaks. Leman Russ and his 1st Great Company had dropped directly onto the silver mountain's highest peak, extinguishing its eternal flame and toppling the symbols of rulership.The Hearthguard of the Phoenix Court valiantly opposed the surging, unstoppable force of the Space Wolves, but they had been torn to scraps and hurled from the mountaintop. The defeated Avenian kings offered terms of surrender, but Leman Russ was deaf to such pleas. He had sworn words of doom upon his Legion's Grand Annulus, and the Wolf King would never break an oath for something as trivial as mercy.The Space Wolves tore down through the mountain, an unstoppable force of nature, their blades and bolts gutting the defenders' ranks like a butcher with a fresh carcass. Nothing was left in their wake, the mountain city, a work of art, utterly vandalised by thoughtless brutality and wanton savagery. Behind the warriors of Russ was only death, and before them was their next target for destruction: the Great Library of the Phoenix Crag, where Magnus the Red and Phosis T'Kar's 2nd Fellowship stood in ordered ranks. Finally, the Space Wolves rampage was halted.Both Ahriman's and Maat's forces linked up with their fellow Battle-Brothers to assist in forming a line of defence against the battle-crazed Space Wolves. Enraged at what he perceived as his brother's betrayal, the Wolf King let forth with a howl of pure rage, cold jagged and merciless. It was the rage of a hunter's fury denied.The force of psychic might was too powerful for any normal mind, and killed many Battle-Brothers within the ranks of the Thousand Sons. This psychic shockwave killed almost every member of the Athanaean Cult in the 2nd Fellowship, and most of the Athanaeans who weren't killed outright were reduced to drooling lackwits.The Great Company of Amlodhi Skarssen charged the implacable and immovable bulwark formed by the Thousand Sons, their charge unstoppable, elemental power. Enraged by his feral brother's shortsightedness, Magnus was more than willing to kill every last Space Wolf in order to preserve the knowledge within the Phoenix Crag. For though the Thousand Sons had not started this fight, they would more than be happy to finish it.Magnus ordered Hathor Maat and the Pavoni of the 3rd Fellowship to take the Space Wolves down. The captain of the 3rd Fellowship hammered a fist into his chest and directed his ferocious will to aiding his Battle-Brothers. Brother Hastar stood next to him as his fellow warriors of the Pavoni unleashed the full force of their bio-manipulation.Unseen currents of aetheric energy sliced into the Space Wolves, blocking neural transmitters, redirecting electrical impulses in the brain and rapidly deoxygenating the blood flowing from their lungs. The effect was instantaneous. The Space Wolves' push faltered as their bodies rebelled. Limbs spasmed, heart muscles fibrillated and warriors lost all physical autonomy, jerking like the maddened dolls of a demented puppeteer. Chief Librarian Azhek Ahriman tried to talk some sense into his gene-sire, before the situation spun out of control.The fighting only ceased when Hastar, an Astartes of the 1st Fellowship, underwent the cursed mutational "flesh-change" during the battle. Ahriman and one of his fellow captains fought to hold Hastar's body down, but the changes wracking his body were as apocalyptic as they were catastrophic. With the gurgle of wet meat and the crack of malformed bones, Hastar's body was suddenly upright, though any semblance of limbs was impossible to pick out in his erupting flesh.Swelling bulk and crackling energy patterns writhed across his flesh, and his screams turned to bubbling gibbers of maniacal laughter. The Thousand Sons scattered from Hastar's terrible new form, horrified and terrified in equal measure. This was their greatest fear returned to haunt them, a horror from their past long thought buried.A dreadful, wracking sickness quickly seized all the other Thousand Sons present and their innards began to rebel against their fixed shapes, their entire bodies trembling with the desire for a new form. A surging wave of power erupted as Magnus the Red stepped towards the hideously transformed Hastar. Unchecked energy had destroyed the warrior of the Pavoni, but it empowered Magnus.The creature Hastar had become reached out to Magnus, as though to embrace him, and the Primarch opened his arms to receive him with forgiveness and mercy. But before the Crimson King could help his stricken son, a thunderous bang sounded and Hastar's body exploded as a single, explosive round detonated within his chest.This was one of the first ever recorded incident of an Astartes killing another and the first known time a member of the Thousand Sons Legion was killed by a member of the Space Wolves Legion. Only through the timely intervention of Lorgar did the two Primarchs not come to blows. This act of calculated brutality was the first wedge to be driven between Leman Russ and Magnus the Red.