Dante - The First Omen: The warrior who would become Dante began life as any other Blood Angel. He was born a mortal, name Luis, to a man called Arreas, on Baal's second moon in 447.M40. Luis grew to adolescence roaming the Great Salt Waste, far beyond any settlements on Baal Secundus. That moon is an unkind home to those that claw out an existence on its back, with the assault of constant radiation and attacks by vicious, mutated lifeforms common occurrences. At seven Terran-standard years of age, the boy lost his mother. Emboldened by the loss, in a few years time, he in turn abandoned his father to make the perilous journey to become an Angel. Due to life roaming the Salt Wastes, Luis' growth was stunted by malnutrition even more so than his peers. His skin shared the same pocked-mark disfigurement that all Baalites bore, due to exposure to the rad-deserts of his homeworld. The Great Salt Waste, which Luis called home, was far removed from Angel's Fall. No Salt Roamer who attempted the journey survived to make the leap. Yet the boy showed resolve, resolve that would serve him well in the years to come, and attempted the journey. Alas, like so many before him, Luis failed when thirst gripped him and deprived him of will. When all hope seemed lost, the boy spied a winged, golden figure, and with it, precious water. This was the first of four encounters with what Luis would come to know as the Sanguinor.It is said that Luis showed no special promise among the tribesmen that finally reached the Place of Choosing. Sheer luck allowed him and the other 500 boys to pass the first Winnowing. Yet it was Luis' resolve, not chance, that afforded the approval of his peers in the trials that followed. Throughout the trials, Luis remained unremarkable -- he was neither the most athletic, nor the strongest. But he survived, and was taken to the Place of Challenge. It was there that the boy faced his first true test -- the Trial of War. With a clear mind and confidence Luis led his force to victory, yet the senseless bloodshed and deaths of the other Aspirants disgusted him. This disgust served him well in his final trial -- the Trial of Horus. Adhering resolutely to his morals, Luis refused to kill a fellow Aspirant, thus sealing his place as a Blood Angel. Through this act he earned his place amongst the Aspirants taken from their tribes and transported to the Blood Angels' fortress-monastery on Baal itself. It was there that he faced his final challenge -- the Winnowing of Weariness. For three solar days Luis remained awake, and on the final day, as sleep threatened to overtake him, he received aid once more from the mysterious Sanguinor and passed his final test. In the Chapter's vast, armoured cathedral, beneath the glowering marble gazes of the Blood Angels who had been the Chapter's champions throughout the Age of the Imperium, Luis was presented with the Sanguinary Chalice, and drank the synthesised blood of the Ninth Primarch. He fell into the ritual year-long slumber necessary for the process of gene-seed implantation, and was entombed within a sanctified sarcophagus.It was during this time that the boy first drew notice from the Sanguinary Priests. While all somnolent Aspirants would dream visions of the Primarch's life and death, the child Luis cried out endlessly over the course of his year-long internment, shouting the names of fallen Primarchs, dark gods, and long-banished daemons, while drifting between consciousness and slumber, never truly rising to one or falling into the other. So violent was his slumber that it is said he lifted the lid of his sarcophagus. Many Aspirants die in their sarcophagi -- it is simply the way of things for those who would become Blood Angels. The weak will always fail, even at the first step. But no Aspirant had ever shown such torment, and lived to be freed. Upon emerging, with the cancerous flaws of Baal Secundus shriven clean from his remade, angelic form, none of the Sanguinary Priests failed to note the marks left by the desperate clawing at the inside of his coffin lid. And yet, there he stood among them, Luis no longer. Dante was perfectly whole, perfectly composed, ready to begin his true training. Some among the Sanguinary Priesthood believed this first omen signalled a swift descent into the maddened depths of the Red Thirst and Black Rage. Others pointed to Dante's perfection after enduring what seemed like greater pain than any other Aspirant, and argued that it heralded only greatness.