It transpires that prolonged extra-corporeal separation of the 'gene-seed' from the human body does, indeed, carry a non-negligible risk of mortality. This valuable conclusion was derived by Nyx through rigorous empirical observation.
The gestation period of the Saint Egg proved more protracted than Nyx had initially projected. He and Curze presently maintained a vigil over Sevatar, who continued his oscillatory trajectory between comatose oblivion and fugue-state semiconsciousness.
Nyx registered, with acute sensitivity, that Curze's already-limited reservoir of fraternal confidence was undergoing rapid depletion. Though his brother's countenance remained impassive, Nyx could read him with unerring precision.
Were a Mechanicum adept present at this juncture, Curze would have already converted him into a spherical projectile and field-testedhis aerodynamic properties.
"Nyx... How much longer?" Curze suppressed the incipient wrath kindling in his thoracic cavity. He had lost count of how many times he had posed this identical enquiry. On each prior occasion, Nyx had responded with some variant of: "Nearly complete."
BEEEEEP——!
A shrill, discordant alarm shrieked from the vital-signs monitor. The waveform indicating Sevatar's cardiac activity had flattened into a horizontal line of immaculate, undisturbed rectitude.
"I shall withdraw and dispatch— I mean to say, is it not approaching completion...?" Nyx did not permit himself to complete this enquiry. He was already in motion. "Apprehension is unwarranted. Asystole is hardly an unprecedented complication in this context. Observe — I shall reanimate him forthwith!"
Golden lightning coruscated between his digits. Nyx advanced upon Sevatar's recumbent form with alacrity. His palm descended upon the subject's thoracic cavity; a torrential discharge of electromagnetic energy transfixed the supine warrior.
The vital-signs monitor, obligingly, resumed its rhythmic undulation.
The sole observable secondary effect was a marginal deepening of Sevatar's epidermal pigmentation. A faint wisp of carbonised effluvium escaped his oral aperture.
Through this iterative reanimation protocol, Nyx had, through sustained practical application, significantly elevated Sevatar's tolerance for electrocution-induced transient mortality.
"Rest assured. So long as I am present, he shall not expire." Nyx pivoted to address Curze, exhibiting a confident thumb-elevationand a beatific smile.
Curze's present affective state could most parsimoniously be characterised as homicidal ideation.
This villain had, with consummate evasion, omitted to disclose that Sevatar was at imminent risk of being electrocuted into a carbonised analogue of a Nostraman Brother Ni — a perfectly adequate reserve Salamanderrecruit.
The sensation was not dissimilar to witnessing one's eldest son being informally seconded to a bovine-cranial individual prior to Vulkan's own discovery of his Legion.
Vulkan: This is a gross mischaracterisation of my Legion's recruitment protocols!
A further ten minutes elapsed.
Sevatar's Saint Egg had, at last, attained complete gestation. Its morphology was reminiscent of a miniaturised Night Lords helm. It exuded an internally contradictoryaura — simultaneously sacrosanct and profoundly heretical.
"Nyx. You are certain this artefact is not... contaminated?"
"Assuredly not! Such allegations are yellow— Ah. The Emperor himself dares to—"
"Would you credit it, were I to enter the Warp and engage in commercial negotiations with the Four Bastards, I would have been elevated to—"
Nyx did not complete this declaration. Curze's glacial regard terminated his discursive trajectory with extreme prejudice.
Curze entertained no desire whatsoever to audit additional instances of his brother's blasphemous logorrhoea. He perceived, with cadaverous certainty, that continued exposure would result in contamination by prohibited knowledge and immediate elevation to Tzeentchian Daemonhood.
Why Tzeentch specifically?
One can only speculate that this constitutes knowledge it were preferable not to possess.
(The possibility of summary existential erasure by the Emperor could not, however, be definitively excluded.)
The Saint Egg attained complete morphological consolidation. Nyx glanced at Sevatar — who had, yet again, transiently expired — and depressed the actuator inscribed 'INSTALL' upon the [Saint Egg Transformation Engine No. 1].
BUZZ——!
The apparatus roared with formidable mechanical conviction.
Sevatar's countenance contorted once more. His Saint Egg was reacquired from extra-corporeal stasis. His somatic dignity was reaffirmed. His property was repatriated.
Immediately thereafter, and to Curze's patent astonishment, Sevatar's corporeal configuration underwent dramatic expansion. He was elevated, in a single, continuous paroxysm of morphogenesis, from a baseline human of unremarkable stature to a transhuman warrior approximating eight feetin height.
The implantation of all ancillary Astartes organelle-complexes was instantaneouslyeffected. The qualitative standard of these implantations approached the 'First Founding'calibration.
What occasioned Curze's greatest satisfaction, however, was the complete restitution of Sevatar's Nostraman pallor — the electrocution-induced hyperpigmentation had been wholly resolved.
The perfect creation now reposing upon the slab exceeded every prior expectation Curze had entertained regarding his 'idealised firstborn'.
In this regard, Curze covertly — beyond Sevatar's field of perception — elevated his thumb in Nyx's direction.
"GYAAAAAGH——!!* "*
A roar — saturated with puissance and catharsis — erupted from Sevatar's transhuman respiratory apparatus.
He shattered the adamantium restraints through brute somatic force alone. He vaultedfrom the slab. He fixed Nyx with a regard comprising terror, wrath, and a complex admixture of additional, less readily classifiable affective states.
"You... diabolical..." The imprecation coalesced at the threshold of his oral aperture. Sevatar's survival instincts, however, screamed a comprehensive and unambiguous admonition:
This entity before you is categorically not to be antagonised.
Sevatar's oral commissures remained agapefor a protracted interval. The distal segment of his anathematic declaration was withdrawnand suppressed.
From Nyx's perspective, Sevatar's present demeanour was strongly redolent of a disgruntled septuagenarian attempting, and failing, to expire with dignity.
He was, however, possessed of a comprehensive methodology for reconstituting this recalcitrant elder into a docile 'Hakimi'.
"Sevatar... Compose yourself." Curze advanced a single pace. His delivery was measured, authoritative. "I acknowledge your... homicidal ideation. However. He is, after all, my brother. Though I am, at this present juncture, not entirely prepared to concede that fact without reservation..."
Curze registered, with some bemusement, that his exposure to Nyx appeared to have enhanced his capacity for articulate self-expression.
"...Affirmative. I obey, father."
As the submissive daughter-in-law of Nyx's household, the instant Sevatar's perceptual apparatus registered Curze's presence, the filial piety and deferential complianceencoded within his genetic substrate assertedthemselves with irresistible potency. He immediately assumed a genuflective postureand vowed fealty.
"Rise, my son."
With Curze's imprimatur, Sevatar acceded to verticality with alacrity. His superior extremity remained, however, reflexively positioned to conceal certain anatomically sensitive districts. He manoeuvred himself into Curze's immediate proximity, maintaining maximal spatial separation from Nyx.
This demeanour — palpable grievanceconjoined with impotent restraint — was profoundly affecting to observe. It was, in its own fashion, tragic.
This episode was, accordingly, encoded within Sevatar's psychohistory as a classified memory-object of the highest security clearance — its sensitivity significantly exceeding that of the First Legion's most closely-held secrets.
"Accept this. It is a ceremonial vestment, prepared in anticipation of your successful transfiguration." Nyx's smile was benevolent. He retrieved a pre-prepared ensemble from his pocket dimension, its dimensions precisely calibrated to Sevatar's present corporeal configuration.
He had, during intervals of professional respite, personally tailored this garment. It was, in its own fashion, commemorative.
Sevatar's countenance, upon receiving this vestimentary offering, was a study in profound ambivalence.
Under the silent, insistent direction of his own survival instincts, however, he accepted Nyx's 'benevolence' with an expression of resigned submission.
Nyx maintained his pedagogical, beneficentsmile. Observing Sevatar's acceptance of his garment, he exhaled with satisfaction and administered a paternal gesture of approbation upon the youth's shoulder.
Sevatar trembled.
Heh heh. You may resist now, young man. In due course, however, you shall come to appreciate the extensive photographic archive I have compiled...
Nyx entertained a vivid premonitory phantasm: a future iteration of Sevatar, genuflecting before him with the abject devotion of a lifelong vegetarian presented with a comprehensive banqueting platter, imploring him to suppress these incriminating pict-captures.
Future Sevatar: I shall accede to any request. Any. Simply refrain from disseminating these images...
Resistance Stronghold — Primary Training Courtyard.
Upon Nyx's arrival, accompanied by Curze and the newly-transfigured Sevatar, the Company Captain — who had been apprised of his instructions — was already in attendance.
A substantial congregation of rebels had assembled in the periphery, their affect a uniform composite of gustatory anticipationand spectatorial avidity.
"Test your capabilities, Sevatar." Nyx's gesture was permissive. "Engage the Company Captain in training exercises. A preliminary admonition: the Captain is formally designated as my personal equerry. Exercise appropriate caution."
Sevatar did not, however, immediately comply with this directive. He deferred, instead, to Curze.
"Proceed, Sevatar!" Curze's delivery was saturated with exhortation — and imperative. "Demonstrate your puissance to the assembled multitude!"
With his gene-father's imprimatur, Sevatar — who had been ardently anticipating the opportunity to validate his newly-acquired capabilities — could no longer suppress his combative impetus.
His inferior extremities propelled him across the intervening space with formidableacceleration. His corporeal mass translatedthrough the atmosphere like a ballistic ordnance, effortlessly parting the congregated spectators and depositing him at the courtyard's epicentre.
The velocity and momentum he had manifested in that single, explosive translation electrified his sensorium.
He had never experienced such transcendent puissance.
"Admirable, initiate." The Captain's regard was approving.
His quotidien responsibilities — training baseline humans — had, over protracted duration, induced a pronounced professional pruritus. Individuals exhibiting Sevatar's calibre of latent aptitude were exceedingly rare — and the youth had only just completed his apotheosis.
"Then I pray you — instruct me further!"
Jago Sevatarion — who would, in subsequent epochs, be enumerated among the 'Big Three'of the Great Crusade's legendary martial trinity — commenced his inaugural engagement as a transhuman warrior.