Status Updates From Deus Encarmine (20th Annive...

-he must stay alive to help save the Angels from falling into the clutches of the chaos gods, who have engineered everything to put Arkio - who in reality recieved *their* blessing - in command of our favourite vampire-boys. Such a thing would certainly cause a civil war in the imperium.. dark times. What next? Will Rafen be able to stop the machinations around his brother? Or is all lost?
Next book, we'll see.

Rafen awakes after a while recuperating from his grievous injuries. He finds that the company has sworn itself completely to Arkio as Sanguinius reborn, and is even gathering recruits, planning to return to baal and challenge Dante for control over the Angels. The die is cast- and now Raf has to make a choice, as sacjiel demands at gunpoint he swear loyalty to his brother. He does, but only as a ploy, knowing-

- to stop Iskavan, but is wildly overmatched. However, Arkio, hearing word of the attack, decides to head the angels to kill the wordbearers against sachiel's urgings. Tearing through the disorganized heretics with his men, Arkio arrives just in time to kill an injured Iskavan in a climactic duel- at the end, before Rafen passes out from blood loss, he sees Arkio starting to sprout wings- like Sanguinius. Uh oh.

Here we go! Iskavan and the wordbearers cut their way through a hospital, the dark apostle seeking a cache of virus bombs to destroy the planet. Rafen engages in a one man pursuit to try and stop it, but things seem grim- until Arkio, firey as ever, hears news of the heretic attack and leads the angels to stop them. Rafen is badly wounded fighting a chaos spawn and only barely gets to the cache in time-

It seems that Stele plans to turn the Angels using their veneration of Sanguinius- and Arkio, as his false reincarnation, against them. Arkio wants to discard the codex astartes, reunite the Angels into a legion, and embark on a crusade; such a blatant power grab would inevitably cause a schism in the imperium and force the Angels onto the side of Chaos. If Rafen can't stop it, the imperium is doomed- humanity withit

The plot reveals itself- Rafen has a heated discussion with Arkio about his "blessing", and we a get a pov from Iskavan, whose summoning ritual fails; the dark apostle, with a hand from tzeentch, won't let him as it would disrupt his plan to corrupt the Blood Angels via Arkio; Stele is a true heretic after all! He insults Iskavan, seemingly trying to goad him into an attack, and it works- only Raf can save the Angels