Editing Knights Repentant (section)

==Origins==
When the Word Bearers 413th Expeditionary Force (almost a thousand Astartes Legionaries with Imperial Army backup, Mechanicum support, serfs, Navigators, first generation Astropaths and a small fleet of ships) surfaced from the [[warp]] they expected that their bloody path of righteousness would simply continue as it had previously done.

The planet that they had set course for, Maxima Principa, which was labelled to be their next conquest for the fledgling Imperium, after emerging from the [[warp]] seemed to already be an Imperial province. They queried their navigators and techno-magi on the subject of warp-drift and system malfunction and many rituals of testing and purification were performed, all to no avail. When the answer came it was from the somber lips of the head magus of the astro-cartographical division. Unnoticeable to the base-line human eye, and even the superhuman eyes of the Astartes, the stars were not quite where they should be. Careful consultation with the Logic Engines of the fleets ship confirmed this. the star has also had moved and by the reckoning of the much repeated calculation rituals the ships chronometers needed to be changed to 545.M41.

They were in the right place, but thrust forward in time millennia from home. 

They cautiously made contact with the local authorities of the capital planet of that system and descended to the surface. They breathed the air of another time and walked on ground that should not have known their footfalls. They listened to the voices of people they should never have known and read records of a future that had become a past. What they found sickened them to their marrow. Of all the names of the distant past none save Horus was more detested than their progenitor.

Their beloved [[Primarch]], [[Lorgar]], betrayed the [[Emperor]] and was one of those who were responsible for the current sorry state of the [[Imperium]]. All of their trials and tribulations and suffering to dispel the remnants of Old Night was for less than nothing. All of it wasted, twisted, and ruined by their [[Primarch]] declaring his allegiance to what they thought only as a harrowing rumor. Their names and the name of their Legion had gone down in infamy, and rightly so.

They searched all of the records, all of the archives and all of the libraries searching, desperately searching for something, anything. Something to make the nightmares they now saw when they closed their eyes and imagined the future that never was, something that could prove all they had witnessed a bad dream, something to reveal a diabolical ruse. They found nothing of the sort. But they did find some things. They now had a rudimentary knowledge of the new and terrible era. They knew what awaited them.

The only logical thing, the [[Adeptus Mechanicus]] claimed, was to run. Flee to the horizon and never ever stop. This dreaded [[Inquisition]] would find them. They would be hunted and if they did not break orbit immediately they would be put down like rabid mongrel dogs.

But they had faith. If they were to die then they would die as men, with dignity, not fleeing like rats from a fire. Weapons systems were powered down, shields were lowered, engines were cooled and all over the fleet the hymns of sorrow were sung. It was a cold and lonely night as they waited for judgement.

They needed not wait long. Soon after, one of the [[Black Ships]] of the [[Inquisition]] translated into the system, darker than the void it moved through. By the divine providence of the Emperor it was one [[Inquisitor]] Daedalus Rimalski who made contact with them. They had heard enough of the [[Inquisition]] to know their odds of survival but they were men of faith and so were unafraid of mere death. What disturbed them at a far deeper level was the orders to submit to deep level mind-trawling by Daedalus and his cadre of trained [[psykers]]. For a moment the fate of the last pure sons of Lorgar stood on a razor edge; whether to allow witch-kin to violate their minds or submit to a solemn and dignified execution. Only their understanding that Daedalus Rimalski was a man of sacred authority derived from the holy [[Emperor]] saved them from their own stubborn nobility.

What the [[Inquisitor]] found was almost certainly not what he suspected.

The [[Inquisitor]] knew of their gene-stock and had witnessed the horrors of the Word Bearers first hand and the seditious agonies they inflicted upon innocent souls. But he could not see that fell reflection in the eyes of the post-humans that stood so proudly before him.  He could feel the sorrow of these sons of a [[Traitor Legion]] still so innocent of [[Chaos]]. Time-distortion was not an uncommon phenomenon of the reality violating nature of the Warp, and with a second-hand certainty torn from their minds he knew they had not partaken the sin of treachery that their brother Legionaries had. 

The Adeptus Mechanicus acolytes in the Inquisitors staff declared all present free of genetic deviancy or malformation and their armaments compliant with [[Imperial]] standards (despite being millennia outdated).

It was true that gods other than the [[Emperor]] existed, but they were parodies of the one true divinity they served. The [[Chaos Gods]] were an anathema that needed to be fought at every opportunity, while their fallen brethren needed to be slain. Filled with a new resolve and a new mission, the old Legionaries made it clear that they would redeem themselves in blood and fire for their Legion's actions and restore their name in the eyes of an [[Imperium]] that rightly despised them. They forsook the Word Bearer name. With blade, fire and faith, they would purge the taint of their Legion and Primarch, to secure the Emperor's blessing to return to their time of the Great Crusade and the founding of the [[Imperium]], to prevent the [[Horus Heresy]] from ever coming to pass.

They are no longer the Word Bearers, they are the Knights Repentant. And they will have redemption, even if they must to tear it from the gods themselves.