Editing Fabius Bile (section)

==The Great Crusade==
Before joining the ill-fated [[Terra|Terran]] part of the [[Emperor's Children]], Fabius grew up in a wealthy family on Terra, apparently happily. One of his family's retainers was a man who created intricate toys of chimerical monstrosities which delighted a young Fabius. He also taught baby Fabi how to alter white mice into performing tricks and theatrical routines, which always went wrong when they reverted to the bestial instincts and tore each other apart. Little Fabius got frustrated with this but the whole thing served as a preface to his later work. Never let it be said that creepy fuckery didn't start young.

After being inducted into the legion, Fabius swiftly rose through the ranks and became the [[Apothecary|Chief Apothecary]]. Before [[Fulgrim]] was rediscovered, the legion was afflicted by a degenerative gene-seed flaw known as the Blight - a progressive form of [[cancer]] that caused random tumors in both bones and organs. Fabius was tasked with finding a cure, lest the flaw wipe out the Emperor's Children to a man. He gradually became more morose as his work only led to failure (as well as prompting his future experimental streak). All the Terran marines of the Legion were susceptible to the disease and Fabius [[Grimdark|was forced to euthanize a lot of his friends and comrades]], leading to him seeking solitude away from his battle-brothers. Matters were not helped by the last shipment of uncorrupted gene-seed randomly vanishing from the [[Luna]] gene-forges and the archived samples degenerating onsite - an incident Crusade command wrote off as a mystery for the ages but was actually both [[Trazyn]] and general warp dickery. We also now know that the [[Primaris Marines]] were created from uncorrupted Gene Seed of all the Legions, so it's possible [[Cawl]] got his sticky dendrites into the stores. Fabius, against all odds, rose to the challenge, albeit reluctantly.

It turns out that a cure was ''never'' actually found, and that reuniting with their [[primarch]] on [[Chemos]] only served to provide fresh material for "untainted" [[Space Marines]]. All those who suffered the flaw were put to death in an attempt to prevent any infection from reaching the healthy brethren... Except for Fabius himself who was in a position to falsify his medical records. His prognosis was that he only had about a year to live, but had developed a process of temporarily rejuvenating himself using elixirs distilled from enzymes and proteins drawn from [[Grimdark|dead Astartes]], and quite possibly including those who never even suffered the flaw either.

The Legion as a whole had an obsession with perfection as a general concept but Fabius' first forays into bodily experimentation came when the Legion assaulted Laeran, a world of [[Laer|reptilian creatures]] who were gene-engineered to perfectly carry out a specific task. Bewitched by the idea, Fabius eventually began to perform clandestine experiments on trying to improve the [[gene-seed]] even before the [[Horus Heresy]] started. It didn't take long for [[Fulgrim]] to find out, but he gave Fabius his blessing as long as it didn't bring [[Imperial]] censure upon the Legion. Of course, once the Heresy was underway, prudence and discretion were thrown to the wind and Fabius' enhancements became in high demand amongst the Emperor's Children.

During the opening movements of the [[Drop Site Massacre|Istvaan Massacre]] (taking place before the actual murder-party itself) Fabius ended up saving the life of [[Nathaniel Garro]], who would eventually go on to alert the [[Imperium]] to the Heresy. In retrospect that would probably make Fabius a dead man walking otherwise.