Editing Black Locks (section)

===Captain Jones’s Betrayal and the rise of the Serpent Watch===
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''"The only way we can be completely forgiven is when we finally wipe out these parodies of our brethren from the face of the galaxy."'' - Serpent Watch Captain Pedro 'The Vengeful'

''"If only dat could have been avoided. Compassion sometimes leads ta damnation. And da forma me failed in stopping dis because of belittlement."'' - The Samdi Baron on his predecessor's choices
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The first half of the 38th Millennium was a time when the Black Locks were at their finest with all Imperial factions. The planets within the Known Regions were colonized, new goods circulated through established trade lines and new ones were created with newly established colonies. Even the boundaries of the Undiscovered Regions were pushed further as new planets were included to the colonies. Still, everyone kept away from the Abyss that lurked in the centre of these parts of the Calico Stars.
These times were one of those that could be called a golden age for the chapter. Apart of Chaos, Xeno and Renegade incursions that were immediately dealt with, nothing wrong has ever happened. That is until a series of events that nearly made the Black Locks become targets for the Ordo Malleus.

Captain Jones of the Corsair Hearts was chosen to be a liaison for a couple of months between the marines and the Inquisition. Much to his dislike, he accepted it with bitterness due to the fact on how he held the Inquisition, especially the Ordo Malleus. The Captain arrived with a retinue of his trusted men to the planet of Keiserberg in Saint Philip controlled space that was under complete Inquisitorial control, in the facility known as Keisersers Onberispelijk Strong, in the low gothic of the colonists of in this part of the Colonized Regions. The facility was a place where psyker savants were trained and distributed among Inquisitorial forces and the various factions working among the colonies. The conditions were bad and the psykers mistreated more than usually. No wonder since the Inquisitor in charge, by the how relevant name of Erik Forfølgeren, wasn't fond  of psykers and treated his current occupation as a punishment, thus venting his irritation on the unfortunate occupants. This disgusted the Captain. He may have had some superstitions towards psykers, but he would've never treated them in the way they were in the facility. The only thing that he wanted is to end this damnable meeting as quick as possible. Until he saw her...

She was a delicate and gorgeous lass, with silky dark hair and a sleeveless psykana robe adorned with sigils and hexagramic wards. Something suddenly hit the Captain in the back of his mind and felt a strange warmth in his chest. For the first time in his life he felt something that Space Marines usually (or to be more precise, never) experience. The psyker girl was called Calypso, and she was the personal savant of Forfølgeren. At first the Captain maintained his distance from her to not arouse suspicion. When he managed to find a way to meet the psyker girl one on one every day, the two started to talk to each other. At first Calypso was shy, but the more the two talked, the closer they got to know each. Calypso was a orphan that grew up on the Feral World of Lemnos in Port Royalty controlled space. When her psychic powers awakened, she was picked up by the Black Ships and sent to Terra. After being judged strong enough, she was shipped back to this facility. The Captain could see that she was actually pulling off a cheerful facade. In reality Calypso was being mistreated by Forfølgeren because of her psyker origins. She could conceal the marks and bruises, but she couldn’t fool his sharp eyes. Jones decided to give her support for the time being. He knew that it wouldn’t last, but at least some warmth would raise her spirit.

One day while walking during the late evening, Jones saw from a distance that the Inquisitorial henchmen were transporting something on large wheelbarrows. The Captain, out of sheer curiosity sneaked towards the henchmen to find out what they were transporting. After a couple of minutes, the marine finally had his answer. Corpses. The savants were piling up corpses of dead psykers into a giant mass grave. For the Captain this was suspicious in the extreme. Jones waited until the area was safe, silently moved towards the nearest of corpses and ripped a piece of flesh in order to eat it. Thanks to his abilities granted by the  implant allowed him to see into the memories of the dead psyker. What he found out horrified him.

The Inquisitor Erik already was known for being very intolerant towards psykers, but when he’s around other Inquisitors, he’d always tone down his dislikes. However, nobody knew how far his hatred towards them was. False accusations, manipulations towards simply tormenting the psykers, those were all but a fractal of what the Inquisitor did to them behind the curtain. Jones wanted to free Calypso from this hell-hole, yet doing so would make the Chapter target practice for the Inquisition, as well the possibility of being excommunicated was blatantly visible. The Inquisitor wouldn’t hand over the girl due to her being his personal savant, as well being the property of the Inquisition. On the day before his depart, Jones promised Calypso that he’d come for her.

When Jones returned to the Corsair Hearts, he immediately asked the current Samdi Baron, who was also the current Master of The Dread Fleet at that time, if there was a way to gain Calypso. The first thing the Baron did was scolding him like a child for putting the very existence of the Chapter over a psyker girl. The Baron understood the youngling, yet what he desired was way too risky. The Hex Company Captain told him to be patient and wait until the situation was beneficial for them. Jones however didn’t want to hear about this and returned to his flagship. In order to monitor his behaviour, the Master of The Dread Fleet sent in someone who wouldn’t arise suspicion such as a Myst Grave and he knew whom to sent in. 

An Old Timer from the Rum Grails, Old Quartermaster Gibbs was sent to the Corsair Hearts as under the reason of meeting an old friend of his, the infamous 2nd Mate known as Brother Sparrow. Secretly he reported to the Baron about Jones’s moves for about four months when suddenly all comm. messages from Gibbs ended. When the Chapter tried to hail The Corsair Hearts, there were no signals nor signatures. Fearing the worst, The Samdi Baron declared the Corsair Hearts lost and broadcasted this message to the rest of the Calico Stars. Everything went silent as if the company simply disappeared into nothingness. Three years have passed as the entire Dread Fleet searched for the Company, yet there were no signs nor clues on them.

One day everything has resolved itself as a Malleus Inquisitor by the name of Otto Ritterman, with a whole company of Grey Knights, appeared demanding explanations from the Baron on a attack on Keiserberg’s facility that occurred two and a half years ago under mysterious circumstances. That attack was a mystery due to the fact how the assailants managed to attack without the personnel sounding the alarm nor contacting the nearest Imperial forces. As a result of this attack, many psykers escaped either into the wilderness of Keiserberg or fled to seek shelter into the human settlement, and Inquisitor Erik impaled on a enormous pole. After a long time of investigation and analysis of data that was collect from the more undamaged servitors, it was discovered that the attackers were Space Marines who had no insignias nor Chapter symbols. Although Space Marine strike forces from various Chapters appeared from time to time in the Calico Stars, but the sole ones who lived here were the Black Locks themselves. The Samdi Baron immediately realized who did this and why. 

The Baron, by carefully picking his words, explained to the Inquisitor that during that time when the facility came under attack, one of their Companies disappeared exactly two years ago. All communications were lost since then and the Dread Fleet repurposed all its resources in order to find the Corsair Hearts. When Inquisitor Otto wanted to ask questions, a Astropahtic message came that a Warp Cutters frigate located and pinpointed the location of the Corsair Hearts fleet. Immediately did the Baron order to contact the rest of The Dread Fleet and make them travel to the location of where the Corsair Hearts were. He also told the Inquisitor that if the disappeared Company of theirs and the attack on the facility have something in common, then both of them would figure that out on the spot. The only thing that bothered the Baron was that why didn’t the Corsair Hearts even reacted when the Warp Cutters frigate spotted them and pinpointed their location.

When the Dread Fleet and Grey Knights arrived to their destination, a moon that belonged to a yet unclaimed jungle planet. Around the Calico Stars there were a number of systems that were on the borders between areas controlled by the Colonial Powers. In the past there were even proxy wars between the colonies over who would claim said systems, but after lengthy negotiations between the Colonial Lords resulted in these kind of conflicts to end as long as nobody would try and colonize them. The drawback of it was that various raiders and pillagers used these planets as hideouts in order to lay low when pursued. Immediately when the Marines exited warp space, they teleported in Terminator boarding parties into the Corsair Hearts ships. The Grey Knights were not slouches either and teleported in their own forces. Nothing however happened when both Chapters teleported in. No alarms, no resistance, no commotions. Only deathly silence was present overall. 

The boisterous privateers and the daemon hunters split up their forces. The marines that teleported into the frigates and cruisers reported that there was not a single soul left except of the servitors that were set into standby mode. The Locks concluded that if there was nobody on either the cruisers or frigates, then everybody from bondsman to lad would either be on the flagship, or disappeared. The latter however was thrown aside when a squad of Grey Knight Terminators discovered the Corsair Hearts and their bondsmen. 

Everyone was in the grand hall. Every Black Lock Company had one on their flagships for great feasts after major successes. Everyone from bondsman to Corsair Heart, from child to adult, was present in the flagship hall. Problem was that none of them was moving, nor was there any sign of Captain Jones nor Old Man Gibbs. Every single person was frozen in stasis, time completely stopped for them. The forces that boarded the flagship were struck down in disbelief, more so the Grey Knights. Nobody expected this. The Techmarines that came to take a look at the situation discovered that the entire floor had stasis field generators under it. This just piled up questions on the already bizarre situation.

When the lads and bondsmen were freed from stasis, they themselves were struck for a moment when they saw the Terminators of other companies along with the ones from the Grey Knights. The Samdi Baron and Inquisitor Otto, along with the other Captains, arrived to personally question everyone from the Corsair Hearts about what happened prior to them being frozen that day in stasis. Everything became clear on why the company broke all contacts. 

During the celebrations that were held when the Company successfully destroyed a well known fleet of pirates that were the thorn in the side of traders for a very long time, Captain Jones made a speech on how well the Corsair Hearts did with offing the pirates and taking their booty. But when he finished the main point, his mood changed suddenly from a proud, filled with energy, to a somewhat morbid and sad one about having to leave the Corsair Hearts one day. Before anyone realized it, everyone went into stasis. There were all those, apart of the marines that joined Jones, that were listed as currently active, yet there was no sign of Quartermaster Gibbs. He either joined Jones or the former Captain did something to him.

After the very long streak of questioning, The Baron and Inquisitor were both sure that the stasis field generators were ordered by Jones to be secretly build under the floor, but that still did not answered Otto’s question about the Keiserberg case. A moment later one of the Hex Company Old Timers called The Samdi Baron to Jones’s cabin. The marines there found something about what Jones was planning, as well as certain items in regards of Lord Otto’s investigation. The Baron had no choice but to tell the Inquisitor about it and ask him if he could call in a conclave of his peers, for that what the Hex Company found is something that would require more than his individual judgement. And indeed, for the amount of evidence was more than the Inquisitor could have handled on his own.

The Inquisitorial Conclave took the evidence from Inquisitor Otto and studied them. Among them was a recording of Jones that was telling that he did attack the Inquisitorial Facility on Keiserberg, but not before leaving the Company and freezing everyone in stasis so that neither them nor the rest of the Chapter would suffer from his escapade. What he did was his and his doing only, and a few trusted marines and bondsmen. It was him who bought some of the least loyal of Inquisitorial savants due to Inquisitor Erik mistreating them. This way there was little resistance and the gates were opened for his men. It was him who planned for a long time the attack and used the savants to collect proof on Erik’s misdeeds. When they finished with the attack, they took all the documents and recordings they got from those they cooperated with and returned back to the flagship one last time to deliver these and the Sabre of Flames, the weapon of Carlos Embereyes, before departing for good.

After analysis of the materials, the Conclave was surprised and shocked due to Erik’s excesses. They knew that the late Inquisitor had bad experience with psykers, but what he did was too much. After the current case would be resolved, another investigation would be committed afterwards. 

The final verdict, despite of the protests of some of the more zealous members, the fault was only that of Jones’ and those who joined him, while the rest of the Corsair Hearts and the Black Locks were decreed not at fault here due to being put into stasis. Still, if the Locks allowed for something like that to occur, then the probability of another bunch of renegades to appear would rise. Thus the Inquisition put the Chapter under watch and send them on a Penitence Crusade to fight off a Eldar invasion of a Mechanicus Forge World to the north west beyond the Calico Stars. The Corsair Hearts however, got it much harder, as they became the prime suspects for going rouge, thus Inquisitor Otto was permanently attached to them. The new Captain of the Corsair Hearts, the former Second Mate Wallace Figures, swore than something like that would never happen. Before the Chapter moved out, the Grey Knights mindwiped their minds as agreed with the Samdi Baron.

The Black Locks left the colonies for the besieged Forge World of Caalma. When they arrived, they indeed met the Eldar forces that were attacking the Mechanicus, but they also met something nobody expected. A enormous Chaos Force struck at both Eldar and Imperials, their forces mostly compromised from a mix of cultists and Chaos Marines. The Locks did not lose any time and made planetfall. Both xenos and humans, united temporally to fight the constantly rising waves of heretics and traitor marines. The warband of Chaos Marines was something unusual. Jet black power armours, golden visors and various colourings. Something was strange about them when the Black Locks engaged them, and rightfully they did, for the horror of what they discovered about them was tremendous. Apart of the more standard weapons used by both loyal and traitor marines, these ones were using the same pattern of bolt pistols as the Locks themselves. This was not a normal coincidence. As if the pistols were not already something to be shocked about, the next discovery shuttered the Chapter even more so. 

The symbols the Chaos Marines were painting all over where they went were the very same ones that Captain Jones used to mark many of his belongings. Now the marines, along with Inquisitor Otto, found out what happened to the former Corsair Hearts Captain. No marine can go onwards without the Emperor’s light, and it seemed that Chaos found its way to Jones’ heart. The Corsair Hearts, especially their current Captain, fell into a enormous rage after seeing this. They broke all protocols and moved onwards into the traitor marines. Cutting, shooting, evisceration and worse, the company relentlessly moved cutting down every single heretic they met. 

All of a sudden, the Chaos Marines and their allies started to fall back. They left the planet as fast as they appeared, looting as much as possible before that. The Eldar themselves retreated back to their ships and disappeared. 

The Black Locks were struck down. Their members fell to the corruption of the Ruinous Powers. The honour of the Corsair Hearts was tarnished. Captain Wallace was furious on the fact that Jones betrayed the Chapter. Due to this, the Captain did something that only Carlos Embereyes did back in the past. First he asked the Inquisitor Otto to teach him and the company everything on how to better combat the Forces of Chaos, for the Captain wanted to regain his and his men’s honour and bring Jones to justice by sending his severed head to Terra. At first Otto was against this, but after seeing the flames in Wallace’s eyes, he quickly changed his mind.

Wallace send a message to the Samdi Baron that the Corsair Hearts will leave for a unset amount of time the Dread Fleet in order to find clues on Jones’ doing. The Baron agreed to that despite the fact that Jones was the problem of the Chapter as a whole, yet this even more so to the Corsair Hearts. And thus the company left the Dread Fleet for some unknown direction in order to gain new strength to fight against the Chaos Marines under Jones’ command, those so called Hearts of Corruption as they called themselves.

Two centuries has passed since then. When the Corsair Hearts returned to the Chapter, they were changed individuals. Gone was their boisterousness. Gone was their flaming passion. Now a cold and calculated mind was present. Single-minded in purpose and vigilant to the core, the company grew greatly under the guidance of Inquisitor Otto and his later successor. Now calling themselves The Serpent Watch, taking their name from the Morgawr of Port Royalty, these marines of the Black Locks returned with a thousand skulls of traitor marines of various warbands. At first the companies saw them with a measure of distrust, but changed their minds when they saw that despite their radical change, they were still one of theirs.

With the Black Locks complete again, the Dread Fleet would resume their quest for the Ultimate Treasure, and to bring down Jones to justice. 
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