Editing Nobledark Imperium Notable People (section)

== Arik Taranis ==

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="100%">''''' The First Custodian '''''

Unlike many of the people who served the Warlord during the Unification Era, Arik Taranis came from the Terrawatt Clan, much like Malcador and the Warlord himself. As a result, Arik knew the Warlord back when the Warlord was merely Oscar, the two of them having virtually “grown up” together. Like most of the people in the Terrawatt technocracy, Arik was quite tech savvy. In fact, Arik was one of the better geneticists in Terrawatt, and was one of the people who helped the Warlord design the first model of Thunder Warrior augmentations. A design which, shortly after, he then used on himself.
 
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">

The Warlord was taken aback at the idea that Arik would subject himself to the Thunder Warrior treatment. The design for the Thunder Warriors was untested and Arik was worth more for his brain than as a super-soldier, and the Warlord told him as much. Arik rebutted that the very fact the Thunder Warrior augmentations were untested was the reason Arik needed to undergo the procedure in the first place. Oscar needed someone he knew to be competent to lead the Thunder Warriors, and Arik was one of the few people who fit the bill.
 
Arik Taranis proved to be unfailingly loyal to the Warlord and his ideals of Unification, serving as the Warlord’s personal bodyguard in the years before the creation of the Adeptus Custodes. However, his service was not without controversy. Taranis had a bad habit of doing things behind the Warlord’s back, some of which went for centuries before anyone even discovered he had done them in the first place. Perhaps the greatest example of this was the large number of experimental modifications he made to his own augmentations, all of which were done behind the Warlord’s back. This was largely due to Taranis and the Warlord’s shared upbringing, leading him to see the Warlord as an equal rather than a messiah or a figure of admiration.
 
This was far from Taranis’ only flaw. Taranis could be rather arrogant and impetuous, and sometimes overestimated his own abilities. He often liked to show off both in terms of intelligence and his physical ability. He had a flashy fighting style and liked to let his opponents know they were completely outclassed, though he would often drop it and fight seriously when the situation demanded it. He was a bit of an adrenaline junkie, and enjoyed a good fight more than anything else.
 
However, Taranis’ initiative was also a good as well as a bad thing. Although Taranis was often too independent for his own good, he was also one of the few people who the Warlord could rely on to tell him the honest truth, even if it was one he did not want to hear. The Warlord saw Malcador as a father figure, and any argument between them tended to be resolved in the latter’s favor. By contrast, the Warlord tended to inspire near-mythical levels of awe in many of his followers, which made debate rather difficult. Taranis knew the Warlord had feet of clay and was willing to give him a second opinion, but because the Warlord knew Taranis only had the Warlord’s best interests in mind and was (usually) willing to defer to his better judgement he was willing to hear him out.
 
Arik Taranis lasted on the front lines much longer than almost any of the other first-generation Thunder Warriors. This was in part because he understood how his augmentations worked, and therefore knew the right combination of diet and drugs to keep himself healthy, and partly because of the large number of experimental add-ons he performed behind the Warlord’s back to make himself more stable, many of which later floated down to later super-soldier designs. However, all of this was merely prolonging the inevitable, and Arik’s body eventually failed him just before the end of the Unification.
 
Oscar came to his old friend shortly after Unification, finding Taranis sullenly sitting in a wheelchair in the hospital. Taranis had been fortunate enough that it was his body that had failed him, rather than his mind. The Warlord, now Steward, reiterated to Arik what he had said decades ago. Arik was worth more to humanity for his brain than his brawn, and he needed to stop pushing himself before he got himself killed. Arik had been a fine soldier and a loyal bodyguard, but what Earth needed now were scientists and doctors, not soldiers.
 
Arik was put to work rebuilding Old Earth with the rest of the scientists. As a geneticist, Taranis was one of many who were tapped by the Steward to work on the Mark III gene-seed project. This was primarily where Taranis’ secret modifications to himself made their way to the later super soldier designs. Although the primary movers in the Mark III gene-seed project were the Merikan gene-hippies and the Ducht Jermanic genesmiths, Arik provided his own contributions to the project, mostly in the form of modifications which he had field-tested himself and therefore knew would work.
 
It was at some time during this period that Arik realized that he could use the results of the gene-seed project to fix his old, broken augmentations. And so it was that once again, with the help of a few other intrepid helpers, Arik Taranis once again decided to tamper with his own augmentations. Arik was excited about the possibilities. Being able to fight once more on the front lines with the Steward. What’s more, if the procedure worked, he could then apply the results of his research to the other Thunder Warriors and heal them of their woes. And why would it not? He was the one who had done the theoretical calculations, after all, and since when had he been wrong?
 
It was the biggest mistake of Taranis’ life. The procedure went disastrously wrong and had to be aborted, and Taranis nearly died. It was only at this point that the full extent of Arik’s modifications to himself became known. Indeed, the only reason Arik even survived the procedure was that he had several additional organs in his system wasn’t even supposed to have. If it had been anyone else on the operating table, they would have died. Taranis’ dream of using the procedure to fix all of the other broken old Thunder Warriors had died on the operating table.
 
The Steward, for his part, was furious when he found out what Taranis had done. Taranis was in better health this time, a bitter consolation from the few augmentations that had been installed before the operation had to be aborted. Although before it was Taranis who provided an outsider’s perspective on the Steward’s actions, this time it was the Steward who saw his friend’s flaws. The discussion between the two was short and personal. Taranis said he was fit for duty. The Steward disagreed. He had seen the medical reports, and he had heard what Taranis had done to himself. Additionally, the Steward personally thought that Taranis was nowhere near as stable as he claimed, given the issues that had plagued many of the other early stage Thunder Warriors. Between his mismatched physiology and the fact that no one but Arik knew how his augmentations worked, he was a liability in the field. He would not let Arik put himself in danger like that. According to the Steward, if Taranis wanted to be his guard so badly, then so be it. But Taranis forgot it was the job of the Steward’s bodyguards to protect the Imperial Palace and humanity’s capital just as much as it was to guard him. Taranis would be staying on Old Earth. And if Oscar ever found out that Arik had been experimenting on himself again, he would put his old friend back in that wheelchair personally.
 
And so, despite his turnaround in health, Arik found himself doing much the same thing he had been doing before he had attempted the procedure. The only difference was that he found himself assigned to the Steward’s new set of bodyguards, the Adeptus Custodes, albeit with explicit orders to remain on Earth guarding the Imperial Palace and training the next generation of Custodians. Although Taranis was not as physically strong as the new Custodes, he made up for it with the years of fighting experienced he had gained by surviving some of the toughest battlefields of Unification-era Earth. Nevertheless, Arik had mixed feelings about his pupils. One the one hand, he was proud of them, both as the product of both his genetic expertise and the students of his teachings. On the other hand, he knew that eventually his students would reach a level he could not attain. Skill could only take him so far and, more than likely, his body would break down once again. Even Constantin Valdor, who he considered his brightest pupil despite his dour, no-nonsense attitude, would one day surpass him.
 
Like everyone else on Old Earth, Taranis was shocked at the news of the War of the Beast. As the horror stories from the front began to trickle in, one terrible fact began to become clear. The Beast seemed to be making a beeline for Old Earth. Many of the legions were already on their way back to reinforce the planet, but it was highly likely the Beast would get there before all of the legions did. If Old Earth was going to survive it was going to need a standing army, and fast. And Taranis knew just where he might find one.
 
Taranis put out a call to all of the remaining old, retired Thunder Warriors using the old Unification-era codes to congregate at the Imperial Palace. These were not first-generation Thunder Warriors, who by that point were all dead with the exception of Angron, who lay on his deathbed within the Imperial Palace. They were late-stage Thunder Warriors, who had been removed from active duty for one reason or another. Most were too broken to respond to his call, but quite a few felt they had one fight left in them. They would need a few days to assemble, but they would be there. Taranis needed one last thing, a symbol to inspire them, one that would to appeal to both Unification-era soldiers and Astartes alike.
 
So he took up the old flag of Unification.
 
The Siege of Terra was one of the most intense experiences of Arik’s life. Orks, daemons, Dark Eldar, and Crone Eldar seemingly coming from all directions. A perpetual struggle just to survive. Old friends and new students fighting side-by-side in the name of humanity. Taranis had never felt more alive.

Taranis’ greatest personal victory of the battle came when he defeated Zarakynel, the Slaaneshi Keeper of Secrets. As Taranis crushed a Chaos Eldar’s head with his gladius, its flawlessly beautiful features exploding into a bloody paste, a flash of silver in the corner of his vision caught his attention. He had only the slightest moment to spin away from the attack as two blades whistled past, sparks flying as they tore gauges into his golden breastplate. The Blood Angel veteran beside him was not so fortunate: locked in combat with a Bloodletter, the twin blades sliced through the two combatants with only the slightest of resistance, daemon and Astartes alike falling into three neat pieces.

Taranis looked up at his attacker. Before him stood a lithe monstrosity surrounded by screeching Daemonettes, a looming figure of purple skin and whipcord flesh. Its features were male and female, animal and human, beautiful and grotesque, all at once, and at the end of its four slender arms wicked swords and claws gleamed malevolently as they spun and danced in the daemon’s hands.

As the battle raged around them, the Keeper of Secrets looked down at him and grinned, wet purple lips splitting to reveal rows of black teeth. “I have heard of you, Arik Taranis. The old custodian. The cripple. The freak. Trying so hard to reach perfection as you watch the rest of the world leave you in the dust. Take heart, though, for to die at my hands will be a beautiful death.” 

Behind Taranis, several Custodes stepped forward to join him, fanning out in an arc beside their Lord Commander. “Perhaps you’re right,” said Taranis. “Perhaps I am only a old mass of mismatched parts and refuse stitched together.” His hand tightened around his gladius, and beside him six halberds rose in unison. “Still, better to die a freak than to live as filth such as you. My body may be weak, but an old friend of mine always said that my brain was stronger than my body. Let us see if that’s true.”

The Keeper of Secrets screeched with rage, and as one the Custodes charged, two splitting off to hold off the Daemonettes and four joining Taranis against the greater daemon. Immediately the daemon’s arms sprang into deadly motion, its blades and claws quicksilver flashes as the four arms attacked, parried, and riposted the attacks of the Custodes. Taranis had never faced an opponent so fast; fighting the daemon felt like fighting ten opponents, as its blows rained down from all sides. Slowed by the great banner in his left hand, it took all his skill and cunning to defend himself from the daemon’s attacks, and for the hundredth time that day he envied the augmentations of the younger Custodes around him. 

Yet they were not faring much better. For all their speed and strength, the Custodes could not seem to find a gap in the daemon’s defenses, leaving only glancing blows even when their halberds managed to connect. All the while, the Keeper of Secrets arms were a blur of motion, blades whirling around its body in an impenetrable defense and lashing out in blindingly quick strikes. The daemon’s attacks eventually found their mark. One Custodes fell, his head cleanly decapitated from his body, and then another fell, cut in two from shoulder to hip as he reeled backwards from the loss of an arm.

Taranis glanced down at their corpses. Taleos, Karwenn. Two boys he had personally picked from a crowd of aspirants. He had placed their first practice swords in their hands and taught them how to swing a blade, lectured them on the meaning of loyalty and duty, and placed the golden, crested helms upon their heads when they were inducted in the ranks of the Custodes. Two more corpses among mountains. ''Perhaps Oscar is right'', he mused. ''I have grown old and worn from battle, my heart hardened and blasted smooth by war and death. My time is over. He deserves a better man at his side.''

As they fought, Taranis noticed the daemon was slowing its attacks just as they neared him, giving him just a hairsbreadth of room to parry or dodge away from its slashes. ''It is taunting me, showing me just how much faster it is,'' he realized. Beneath his helm he smiled grimly. ''Perhaps we are more alike than I thought. I can work with that.''

Taranis feinted backwards, feigning a stumble, and the Keeper charged, shrieking exultantly as it sensed victory. However, its greed and bloodlust left it overextended and the other two Custodes pressed the attack, forcing the daemon to throw out its arms to both sides to fend off assault. In that moment, Taranis saw his chance. Digging in his back foot, he reversed his momentum and charged the greater daemon with a burst of speed, closing the gap in the blink of an eye. Caught without time to prepare a proper defense, the daemon could only howl as it desperately stabbed forward with its two free arms towards Taranis’ chest.

There was no way to block both attacks, the daemon was too close and too swift. So Taranis chose. His sword arm swept up, knocking aside one of the daemon’s silver swords. The other sank deep into the left side of his chest, grinding and scraping as it pierced first his breastplate and then his interlocking ribcage. Taranis grunted and lurched forward, blood spilling forth from the wound. The daemon grinned, for it knew that it had just pierced the Custodes’ primary heart, and it would be a trivial matter to finish the weakened human. 

Or so it thought. Taranis savored the flash of surprise on the daemon’s face as his charge continued unslowed, its gloating pleasure becoming shock. Who would have known that the last ditch surgery that moved his heart to his right side and saved his life on the operating table would save him once again. And now he was within the daemon’s guard. It could not defend, it could not run. 

The Banner of Unification clenched firmly in his left hand, he hacked down at the monster’s leg, severing it at the first joint, and as the Keeper of Secrets fell forward screaming Taranis spun and lifted his gladius to meet it in a great, flashing arc. The power sword sparked and crackled as it bisected the daemon at the waist. Purple blood and steaming ichor spattered Taranis’ helm as the top half of the daemon sailed past, its soul sent back to the Immaterium to grovel before the Prince of Pleasure and explain how his greatest champion had fallen against a freak. 
   
Arik Taranis died spitting defiance into the face of the Beast and his nobs, even though he had not managed to do any lasting damage to the great grot. If one had been able to speak to Taranis after the battle, he would have probably said it was the way he would have wanted to go.
 
Arik Taranis’ body was laid to rest in a now forgotten graveyard in the old nation of Terrawatt.

</div>
</div>