The Avatar

M39.999

The air within the Iron Fervour, a Black Templars Crusade ship, typically tasted of ozone, sanctified oil, and the low thrum of the Geller Field. But tonight, a new flavour permeated the decks: uncertainty, sharp and bitter as bolter propellant.

Marshal Andronus paced the length of his command deck, each step echoing with the weight of centuries of righteous fury. His power armour, darkened ceramite scarred by countless battles, seemed to absorb the light, a stark contrast to the flickering prayer candles arrayed around the central tactical display. His gauntlet clenched and unclenched, the hydraulics hissing faintly.

Beside him, Father Valerius, an Ecclesiarch Missionary granted passage on this leg of the Crusade, fidgeted with the purity seals on his worn robes. His face, usually radiating zealous conviction, was etched with confusion and a nascent, dangerous awe.

"He is a sorcerer, Valerius," Andronus stated, the flatness in his voice more terrifying than rage. "There is no other explanation."

Valerius wrung his hands. "But the outcome, Marshal... the taint was purged. The cathedral stands, cleansed. And the... the civilians..."

"Heretics! Cultists! They consorted with ruin!" Andronus snarled, stopping to glare at the Missionary. "The Emperor's wrath is cleansing flame and righteous bolt, not... not this performance."

The event had occurred cycles ago, planetside, in the Grand Cathedral of St. Drusian, once a beacon of faith, recently discovered to be a locus of minor, insidious warp corruption. The Iron Fervour's landing force, led by the Marshal himself, had been ready for the usual work: bolter fire, flamer-scourging, the swift, merciless termination of anything touched by the warp.

But then he had moved. The one the Administratum records, strangely, called Aang. A being found adrift in a strange, pre-Imperial vessel, exhibiting abilities that defied classification. The Templars had taken him for internment and study, keeping him bound and watched, suspicious of his unnerving calm and the subtle ways the air seemed to shift around him.

Brought along to the cathedral as a last-ditch attempt to understand the nature of his presence relative to warp-taint (the Templars were desperate to prove him a psyker, the simplest explanation), Aang had instead walked into the corrupted nave and acted.

He hadn't drawn a blade or fired a weapon. Instead, as the Templars raised their bolters and the cultists—huddled figures, chanting faintly, their flesh showing minor, disturbing signs of mutation—cowered, Aang had raised his hands.

The wind had come first. Not the stale, dust-laden air of the cathedral, but a pure, impossibly clean current that swept through the nave. It didn't just blow; it seemed to push against the shadows, to lift the oppressive feeling in the air. It buffeted the cultists, not violently, but like a firm shepherd guiding a flock, moving them towards the gaping doorway. They stumbled, confused, but unharmed.

Then the earth had responded. Cracks didn't widen; instead, sections of the floor rose, forming low, smooth barriers that guided the bewildered civilians while simultaneously sealing off side chapels where the taint was strongest. Minor flesh-growths bubbling on the walls seemed to wither as if a vital, corrupting essence was pulled from them by an unseen force within the stone itself.

Finally, the air had grown cold, coalescing into shimmering veils near the altar, encasing the most virulent pockets of warp energy in fragile, pure ice. The stench lessened, the whispering temptations died to a whimper. Aang had stood in the centre of the now eerily clean nave, breathing softly, the unnatural wind dying down.

The Templars had been frozen. Their programming screamed PURGE! KILL! DESTROY THE UNCLEAN! Yet, the target was gone, gently ushered out, and the corruption visibly receding, contained, or simply gone.

"He didn't kill them, Marshal," Valerius repeated, quieter now, more insistent. "He cleansed the space and... guided the lost."

"He used energies not of the Emperor's grace! Manifestations unseen! It looked like sorcery, Valerius! It felt like sorcery!" Andronus slammed his gauntlet onto a nearby console. A pict-screen flickered on, showing Aang now held securely in a stasis field within the ship's brig, meditating with unnerving calm despite his confinement.

"The method is suspect, yes," Valerius conceded, his mind racing. "But the result defies conventional warp-craft. Daemonology teaches that such entities are bound, not... dissipated by the wind. Sorcery leaves a psychic residue, a foul taste on the soul. I felt none of that, only... a strange purity." He hesitated. "Could it be an… a benevolent xenos anomaly? Perhaps a dormant ability from some forgotten human strain, guided by providence?"

Andronus scoffed. "Xenos are anathema. Unsanctioned human abilities are mutant heresy. There are only two explanations: sorcery or an elaborate, subtle trick of the Great Deceiver himself, designed to sow doubt and prevent the righteous purging of His enemies."

This was the chasm that had opened on the Iron Fervour. The Templars, paragons of uncompromising faith and action, saw only the violation of their tenets: unsanctioned power, a refusal of the Emperor's direct judgment upon heretics, a method wholly outside their litanies of hate and fire. They wanted Aang confined, interrogated, and ultimately, if he could not be explained away as a simple, albeit powerful, psyker, executed.

The Ecclesiarchy representatives onboard were fractured. Some, like Valerius, grappled with the possibility of an unrecorded miracle, a sign of the Emperor's power manifesting in ways beyond established dogma. They argued that the preservation of human life, even tainted life, and the cleansing outcome pointed away from malicious witchcraft. Others sided firmly with the Templars, viewing Aang as a profound threat, his power potentially a warp entity in disguise, his actions a deceptive lure. Debates behind closed chapel doors were fierce, quoting scripture and doctrine, seeking precedent that did not exist.

And then there were the Librarians—or rather, sanctioned psykers and Adeptus Astra Telepathica observers, grudgingly attached to the Crusade Fleet at the insistence of higher command. The Black Templars tolerated their presence only under strict watch, viewing them with deep suspicion. The Iterators and Savants of the Adeptus Astra Telepathica were the only ones who could potentially classify Aang. Reports from the cathedral had been transmitted under heavy guard. Their analysis was cold, devoid of faith or fury, but perhaps the most unsettling.

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Data-slate Entry

Adeptus Astra Telepathica — attached to Crusade Fleet Puritas Andronus

Subject designation: Aang, Humanoid Anomaly

Event designation: Sanctum Cleansing, St. Drusian, Segmentum Obscurus

Observation: Subject displayed energy manipulation abilities correlating to elemental forces (Atmospheric Control, Geomantic Resonance, Cryogenic Projection).

Analysis: Scans conducted during and immediately following event show zero correlation with established psychic profiles (Gamma, Beta, Alpha, etc.). No discernible warp-signature fluctuations or associated daemonic resonance detected. Energy expenditure pattern does not match known psyker discipline manifestations or sorcerous pact expenditures.

Conclusion: Subject's abilities are currently unclassifiable by standard psychic or parapsychic models. Further study imperative. Recommend containment under maximum security with psionic dampening measures potentially ineffective. Nature of power source and connection (if any) to the Immaterium remains unknown. Potential non-Imperial origin cannot be discounted.

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"They call him 'unclassifiable'," Andronus spat, glaring at a printed abstract of the Librarians' report. "A psyker they cannot understand is doubly dangerous. And one we cannot burn without certainty is a blasphemy that festers in our midst."

Valerius looked from the Marshal's furious face to the pict-screen of the serene figure in the brig. "Or perhaps... perhaps the Emperor's tapestry is simply larger than we have dared to imagine. A soul guided by wind, purging shadow without fire..."

The Iron Fervour sailed through the void, a vessel of righteous war gripped by internal conflict. The Marshal saw only heresy and a threat to be expunged. The Missionary saw a riddle wrapped in potential grace or profound deception. The unseen Librarians saw a paradox, a data point that broke all models.

And in the brig, The Soul-Wind simply waited, his very existence a silent question mark in the grim, unyielding certainty of the 41st Millennium. His non-violence had not brought peace; it had sparked a different kind of war within the hearts and minds of the Emperor's most zealous.