Editing Lion El'Jonson (section)

==Horus Heresy== 
Shortly after the betrayal at Isstvan III, but prior to the [[Drop Site Massacre]], the Lion and his legion were busy battling for control over the Shield Worlds, but upon learning of Horus' betrayal he emerged from the dark in order to lead a small select group of Dark Angels to capture a set of [[Ordinatus]] war engines that [[Horus]] would have used against the Imperial Palace. Note: These weapons were so big that a blast from one could [[Anal Circumference|take out an entire starport]]. Despite successfully winning this campaign and capturing the weapons, the Lion ended up having a meeting with [[Perturabo]], who was ostensibly on his way to join with Dorn's retribution force in order to bring justice to the Emperor's traitorous sons. The Lion gifted the Ordinatii to his brother with the understanding that Pert would lend his voice in supporting the Lion's candidacy for the position of Warmaster after Horus was dealt with. Suffice to say that the Lion had no idea that his brother had already turned and would likely end up using the war engines on Terra anyway. The Lion then left to re-join his legion. It would turn out that it was Pert who told the Lion of Curze and the Night Lords' activities in the Thramas sector, and was the one to place the target on Curze’s back. However, Horus was ultimately behind both Pert and Curze's actions, as the overarching plan was to set the Dark Angels up to be so busy with the Night Lords as to remove them from the wider Heresy. In particular, Horus wanted to make absolutely sure they weren't anywhere near Terra when he made his move to take it.
[[File:Lion vs Curze.jpg|380px|thumb|right|The Emperor's First and Eighth Sons, spending some quality time together. They might not look like it, but the brothers are having the time of their lives!]]

===Thramas Crusade===
{{Topquote|I was content in the dark places of the galaxy, content to kill in the name of empire and be forgotten. But you have summoned me back with your pitiful flailings at rebellion, for you have endangered the empire my toil has built and for that there is a price to be paid. First we shall speak of my brothers, Curze and Horus, and then you shall learn what terror truly means for the brief remnants of your existence.|Spoken by the Lion as he drags a Praetor of the Night Lords into the ''Invincible Reason'' so that they can have a friendly chat}}

When the [[Horus Heresy]] properly broke out, the Dark Angels began a push-pull war with the [[Konrad Curze|Night Haunter]] and [[Night Lords|his legion]] known as the [[Thramas Crusade]]. The Night Lords had originally been tasked with conquering the sector and turning its assets over to the traitors, in order to fuel the war effort in Horus’ name. Perturabo, who was still playing his part as a loyal son, informed the Lion of their activities. The Lion, under the impression that Dorn’s retribution force could deal with Horus and friends, left to gather a force of Dark Angels to bring the Night Lords to heel. It would only be during the time he was gathering his own forces that the true scale of his brothers' betrayal became apparent. The Lion and the part of the legion accompanying him would now find themselves on the wrong side of the Ruinstorm, unable to get to the other side, and faced with a enemy that could not be left unchallenged and that was very much determined to keep them tied up for as long as possible.

While the Lion was a superior tactician to Curze, finishing that particular fight was more easily said than done. The nature of the combat essentially forced the Lion to play a game of cat-and-also-cat with Curze, and if there was one thing Curze was good at (besides being spooky), it was unconventional warfare. Second, successfully ambushing a warp-capable fleet with another warp-capable fleet is almost impossible. Imperial warp drives are not only inaccurate, but are very difficult to use inside of star systems, so realspace translation with a planetary target in mind has to occur pretty far away from the actual destination. This meant that if the Dark Angels tried to counter a Night Lords incursion, the Night Lords could detect the Dark Angels long before they were in engagement range. By the time the Dark Angels could get significant assets in-system, most of the Night Lords could, and often would, already be gone.  During ‘The Lion’ by Gav Thorpe, the Night Lords are actually capable of somehow following the Dark Angels' ships during Warp travel, something that should have been impossible. The Dark Angels don’t know how they were doing it, but it is likely that the Night Lords were unknowingly getting a bit of a helping hand from the Chaos gods. Traitor counterattacks on worlds such as Sedrrice and Chenros had left both sides battered and exhausted. The situation had turned into an inconclusive quagmire with no end in sight, which suited the Night Lords just fine. So long as they could continue to keep the Dark Angels stuck on the wrong side of the galaxy, their objective was fulfilled.

Also around this point it was apparent that the Lion was hanging out with the [[Watchers in the Dark]], who were apparently feeding him information. ''(Which is kind of a WTF, are they members of the Cabal or not? And do they want to fuck over humanity or not? And what '''does''' the Lion know about it?)''. The Watchers were informing him that his legion back on [[Caliban]] were starting to get naughty (though the way that they conveyed this was... unhelpfully oblique), but the Lion also knew that [[Roboute Guilliman]] had also raised his banner in the East and could have become a threat almost as bad as [[Horus]]. Knowing that it could potentially mean sacrificing his legion if he took too long, he also made it clear during this little conversation with the Watcher that he was 100% loyal to the Emperor. He in fact went so far as to state that he would not suffer the Imperium to be led by literally anyone other than the Emperor, even if that meant he had to fight any or all of his loyal brothers so stop such an eventuality.

After a year of conflict, Curze invited Lion El'Jonson to parley on the planet of Tsagualsa, either to try to turn him or just for the lulz he might get in poking fun at him. Here, Curze once again mocked the Dark Angels, telling Lion El'Jonson that in the future, the Dark Angels' loyalty would be called into question; were they truly loyal, or had they just been waiting on the sidelines to see who won the battle? This proved that Curze wasn't in the office the day the memo about “Not Mocking the Lion” was handed out. The Lion waited patiently for his brother to stop ranting, then apologized to Curze for what he referred to as '''"such a dishonourable blow"''' before he proceeded to [[Awesome|impale Konrad through the gut]] with his sword, defiantly proclaiming that '''"-‘I do not care who knows the truth now, tomorrow, or in ten thousand years. Loyalty is its own reward."''' The two brothers proceeded to have a brutal and bloody brawl which at one point had Curze nearly strangling the Lion despite having been sucker-stabbed minutes before. Fortunately for the Lion however, Corswain of the Dark Angels leapt onto Curze's back and impaled him (again), then preceded to strangle him with his own chains, riding the Night Haunter like he was in a rodeo, which allowed the Lion to get back up; the two brothers would continue to fight until large numbers of Marines from both Legions landed and pulled them apart. Being dragged back to their individual ships while flinging curses at one another, the Lion swore that '''he would not return to Terra''' before he had made Konrad Curze and his legion pay for their traitorous actions, inadvertently ensuring that Curze's prediction would come to pass. It was also after this point that the war would start to turn against Curze really badly. Once again, do NOT mock the Lion.

Taking Curze's message about being "savage weapons" to heart, the Lion stopped chasing Curze around the whole sector and instead tried something different. He enacted a scorched-earth policy to reduce the available area that he had to defend. He took what munitions and warriors he could from less-defended worlds, moved their populations en masse to more defensible locations, then destroyed whatever remained so that the Traitors were left with nothing to fight over. This sort of worked, but also  was effectively doing much of the traitors' work for them. However, this policy created such impregnable strongholds that only ''one'' of them fell to the enemy, which was Thramas itself, and that world was taken for only seven days before being reclaimed by '''Marduk Sedras''' and his forces. Unfortunately for the Lion, this also didn't exactly solve the problem of fighting the Night Lords, as their elusive fleets could still withdraw whenever they were engaged. This meant that the Lion also needed a second aspect to his plan that he believed was to be found in the '''Perditus''' system.

During the journey to Perditus, there was a short run-in with [[daemons]] where the Dark Angels aboard the ''Invincible Reason'' found themselves trapped between reality and the Warp without the protection of the Gellar fields. The command deck of the flagship was saved by the intervention of one of the legion's former Librarians breaking the Edict of Nikaea, which helped the Dark Angels to figure out that psychic powers were the best weapon against creatures of the Warp. When the Lion reinstated the Librarius, one of the [[Chaplain|Chaplains]] got a bit pissy over him defying the Edict of [[Council of Nikaea|Nikaea]] and demanded that the Librarian be immediately executed, even as tides of daemons continued to flood the ship. So what did the Lion do? Delivered a brutal backhanded slap which KNOCKED HIS FUCKING HEAD OFF! No-one fucks with the Lion. Any questions? (it should be noted that the Lion hadn't meant to kill the guy and showed genuine sorrow and regret over the Chaplain's death).

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This scene has caused no small amount of nerd rage amongst Dark Angels players. Mostly because it was fucking stupid.
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When reading this scene, there are a number of things to bear in mind:

*This was not a common occurrence; the shock displayed by the Dark Angels who witnessed the event indicates this was not the normal behaviour for the Lion.
*The entire ship was currently trapped between reality and the Warp without the protection of the Gellar field.
*The ''Invincible Reason'' was currently being overrun by a tidal wave of daemons, and the longer it took to stop them, the greater the loss would be amongst his Legion. 
*The Lion gave the Chaplain multiple chances to stand down, explaining that, yes the Librarian had broken the Edict, but their current situation required their power to be utilized. The breaking of the Edict would be dealt with only after the daemons had been dealt with first.
*The Lion struck out in anger, hitting the Chaplain with the back of his hand, as proven by the armor shards embedded in the back of his gauntlet. This looks more like a disciplinary action then an actual attempt to kill. The Lion lashed out in blind anger, not intending to actually kill; it's up to you to decide whether this makes it better or worse.
*It only took a split second for the Lion to realize what he had done, and his normally stoic appearance was replaced by one of anguish. After looking at the hand that struck the Chaplain he knelt, his eyes never leaving the ruined body and swore that they would mourn for the Chaplain once the ship was once again safe.

The author of “The Lion”, Gav Thorpe was asked what made him decide to kill off the Chaplain, his reply can be found here: http://gavthorpe.co.uk/spoilers/[[http://gavthorpe.co.uk/spoilers/]].
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The ace in the Lion's sleeve was an awesome, yet clearly heretical, sentient warp engine of unknown origin called the [[Tuchulcha]], that the Lion had first learned about during his time campaigning with [[Mortarion]] in the Great Crusade. Upon arriving at its hidden location he found that a group of [[Death Guard]] and [[Iron Hands]] were arguing over it. He very clearly told them both to stand down or he would destroy them, the engine, and the planet itself if need be, rather then let it fall into traitor hands. The Death Guard carried on, believing he was bluffing... until he actually followed through with his threat, only redirecting the attack once the Death Guard had backed down. This artifact was part of a trinity of sentient Warp constructs consisting of itself, the Plagueheart, and the [[Ouroboros]] (the creature at the heart of Caliban). All three parts were at one time part of a single warp entity used by the [[Old Ones]] to create their Webway network, or at least part of it. Strangely enough Tuchulcha refers to [[Caliban]] as its home and states that ‘Salvation’ is waiting there, not just for it but for the Dark Angels as well. However, since the Lion had no real way to tell friend from foe since the Death Guard were working for [[Horus]] and the Iron Hands were now working for [[Rowboat Girlyman]], he ended up shouting at [[Typhus|Typhon]] for a bit, told the Iron Hands to go fuck themselves, and took the Tuchulcha for himself.

At around this time, [[Magnus]] had sussed out that the Lion was carrying around the "seeds of his own destruction", but it is uncertain if he is referring to [[Tuchulcha]], the [[Watchers in the Dark]], the soon-to-be-[[Fallen Angels]], or something else, since there seems to be a lot of strange influences surrounding the First Legion during this period.

The Dark Angels used the Tuchulcha to ambush the Night Lords and eventually break their legion, forcing them to scatter and become a raiding force from then onwards. Konrad Curze, after emerging from the deathly coma caused by the savage mauling he had received at the Lion's hands during the ambush, would end up lurking around the Dark Angels flagship [[A Game of Pretend|playing a deadly game]] of hide and seek, which the Lion almost won until someone interrupted him by radio.

By the end of the conflict the Dark Angels had suffered almost 10,000 casualties, whilst the Night Lords had suffered the loss of around 40,000 marines; the Night Lords had 100,000 marine fighting in the conflict (100% of the legion) vs 70,000 Dark Angels (35% of the legion). But in completing the campaign, the Lion had to effectively damn himself twice in order to do so, first by being just as destructive as the Night Lords and effectively ruining much of the Thramas Sector, and second by bringing the forbidden Tuchulcha device on board his ship and using it. Though to be fair, the Tuchulcha amounted to a completely game-breaking piece of tech when it came to void warfare, as it allowed the Dark Angels fleet to basically ignore every limitation or danger of Imperial warp drives.

Though the Dark Angels couldn't be kept out of the greater fight indefinitely, Curze ultimately succeeded in the strategic objective the Traitors had been aiming for. The Lion had lost his chance to be present at Terra when the hammer fell, and the bulk of the Dark Angels would not be present either. It would take the full might of the Lion, two of his brothers, and their legions to finally break through the Ruinstorm; to be fair, this isn't that surprising, as Horus had years to secretly plan out everything (and it still didn't go exactly to plan) against his unknowing opponents, and to set out his strategies to isolate or sideline the brothers he knew he couldn't get to turn traitor.

===Imperium Secundus===
After the shattering of the Night Lords the Lion headed towards Macragge with a force of 20,000 Dark Angels, leaving the bulk of the Legion under the command of '''Corswain'''. His last command to his Seneschal was to find Russ of the Space Wolves, and to engage the enemy wherever possible.
In order to make the search as effective as possible the Legion split up into Orders, allowing them to search a much wider area. They would unfortunately fail to locate Russ, as he and the Space Wolves had already been saved by some Calibanite Dark Angels who had been sent out to distant fortresses across the void 59 years ago and had recently been trying to piece together what was happening during the Heresy due to the nebula interfering with communications. (Which begs the question, how did Russ know the Lion was heading to Macragge in ‘Vengeful Spirit’ if Althalos hadn’t had any word from the Lion and had no idea what he was doing?) Though the Calibanite Dark Angels had sworn themselves to Luther (most have never even seen the Lion or any other primarch for that matter), these ones seemed to still be loyal to the Emperor.

Corswain went on to travel with Belath (the same arse from “Call of the Lion”) to hunt down some Death Guard forces under the command of Typhon. They gave the Death Guard such a hard time that [[Mortarion]] himself decided that he needed to take control of the situation personally. Belath annoyed Corswain so much ''(yes, this guy is so annoying he managed to get under the skin of the guy who held his own in a verbal duel with ''[[Sevatar]]'' without losing his cool)'' that he was ordered to commandeer as many transports as he could and head to Caliban in order to collect all the Dark Angels stationed there and bring them into the fight.

[[File:Primarchs-Deathfire.jpg|350px|thumb|right|Lords of Imperium Secundus]]

A bit later, the Lion finally made his way out to [[Ultramar|Macragge]] with the intention of seeing [[Roboute Guilliman]]. Due to a giant-ass Warp storm aptly named the Ruinstorm, pretty much anybody who was on the eastern side of the galaxy had been cut off from Terra. Attempts had been made to penetrate the storm, but nobody had come even close to succeeding as far as those who remained were aware. As such, Guilliman had decided that until he heard otherwise, he was going to assume the absolute worst case scenario: Horus had won, Terra was in ruins, the Emperor was dead, and something needed to be done. That something would end up being the formation of a political institution called '''[[Imperium Secundus]]''', which was essentially a space-age version of the Eastern Roman Empire. The point was to preserve as much of the Imperium's progress and ideals as possible, and to try to scrape together enough of a fighting force to give the Traitors absolute hell when the inevitable attack came. To that end, Guilliman's forces had found a xenos device known as the Pharos, a lighthouse-like device built into a mountain on the planet Sotha, which they originally used as a sort of mini-Astronomican. With the light of the actual Astronomican having been cut off by the Ruinstorm, all the disparate and scattered Loyalist forces in the eastern half of the galaxy started converging on the Pharos, either thinking it was the real Astronomican or just looking for some safe harbor. The Lion, due to his ridiculous Tardis, knew precisely where he was going and had the intention of making sure Guilliman wasn't trying to become a third wheel in the current galactic clusterfuck. He arrived on Macragge with no incident despite the Ultramarines being quite on edge (Calth had just happened after all), and put on a parade with his Dark Angels that was so awesome that Guilliman actually got a bit annoyed. This was then sharply contrasted by the Lion straight up ''hugging'' Guilliman when they met, which freaked him out so badly that he dropped his helmet, which the Lion then picked up and gave back to him. Guilliman didn't want to give the job of [[Emperor|Regent]] to the Lion because he didn't trust the Lion, and the Lion didn't want Guilliman to have it because what Guilliman was doing was technically treason. In spite of this, the two brothers were actually getting on for a little while...

... And then [[Konrad Curze|Konrad]] broke loose and pretty much waged a [[Sly Marbo|one man war]] against [[Ultramar]], after which [[Vulkan]] was revealed to have been on Macragge the whole time and the two proceeded to bitchslap each other about for a bit. Guilliman and the Lion had a pissing match because of this over who was [[Keeper of Secrets|hiding the most secrets]]. Eventually [[Sanguinius]] joined the party and they made him [[Emperor|regent]], solving both of their problems.

The Lion was named Lord Protector of Imperium Secundus, essentially making him Warmaster in all but name of the loyalists now allied with the Imperium Secundus. Sanguinius would be the Emperor and Guilliman the architect (i.e the prime minister). Guilliman would command an [[Administratum|army of bureaucrats]], senators and lawmakers whilst the Lion would be the general of the combined armed forces. He would be able to take the fight to Horus at the head of the finest augmented warriors dedicated to the most beloved of the Primarchs, recruited, organised and armed by the greatest logistician in the galaxy and commanded by its paramount general. You really would struggle to put together a better combination, too bad they didn’t really get on or Horus would have had a fight on his hands.

Despite the Primarchs' public display of unity, not all was well with the newly formed alliance. The Lion took Curze’s escape very seriously, seeing it as his own personal failure; the fact that his treacherous brother had once again slipped through his fingers infuriated him and continued to play on his mind. He also became increasingly annoyed with [[Sanguinius]] who despite being made [[Emperor|regent]] seemed to want to do nothing but [[Lorgar|lock himself away and mope around feeling sorry for himself]] like some stroppy teen.

As time passed the Lion grew increasingly obsessed with hunting down his wayward brother and bringing him to ‘justice’ for his past crimes (sounds [[Konrad Curze|strangely familiar]] for some reason) and neglected some of his other duties toward the Imperium Secundus (seriously is anyone else getting a weird sense of deja vu) in favour of preparing in secret to finally put a stop to the Night Haunter’s antics. (In all fairness you can’t really blame him; hunting down another Primarch, especially one as elusive and dangerous as Curze, isn’t exactly something you can half-arse).
*Guilliman tried to blame the Lion for the attack on the Pharos, even going so far as to try to get Sang to team up with him against the Lion; Sang shot back that despite both his brothers naming him Emperor, Guilliman had never truly let go of the reins of power, with Guilliman treating Sanguinius as little more than a figurehead- going out of his way to put on a show in public, yet pulling all the strings behind the scenes regardless to Sang’s wishes. All three brothers had agreed to not draw attention to the Pharos, choosing to not have it heavily guarded on purpose to make it look unimportant; its safety was therefore their collective responsibility, not just the Lion. When the attack against the Pharos happened the Lion was busy elsewhere, beating the shit out of a portion of the World Eaters and freeing another one of Guilliman's worlds from traitor forces; all whilst Guilliman was sitting at his desk at home and Sang was isolating himself in his throne room (at least one of the three was getting shit done).

[[File:The three move forward.jpg|350px|thumb|right|The Lion looking more like a [[Neckbeard]] than usual. Dog the Bounty Hunter would be proud, though.]]
Through the events of “Angels of Caliban” the Lion proves just what he is willing to do and sacrifice in order to catch Curze, and that he is undoubtedly an apex predator among the warp spawned monsters that comprise his family. With the blessing of [[Sanguinius]] he unleashes the Dreadwing upon Macragge, whilst at the same time deploying the Deathwing to protect the capital and enforce martial law. Although the populace were unhappy about the restrictions placed upon them, the Lion had good reason for doing so; terrorist attacks had spread across Macragge, resulting in the death of large numbers of civilians and even entire patrols of Space Marines. The terrorist activity was spreading out from the mountainous region of Illyrium, whose people turned out to have been worshippers of Chaos for centuries before Guilliman's foster father was even born. The people of this region had never accepted Guilliman as Macragge's ruler, but decided that discretion was the way to go and had kept their rituals secret, for as long as a Primarch stood against them they knew that they could not win... yet. The Lion saw the pattern in their workings and knew that Curze was the one pulling the strings, something Guilliman refused to accept. The people of Illyrium now had their own demigod on their side and were quick to take action against the rest of Macragge. Both the Lion and Guilliman argued over how to deal with them. Guilliman refused to take up arms against "his" people, and the Lion argued that they could not move forward whilst this rebellion acted as a weight around their necks. Sanguinius sided with the Lion, much to Guilliman's dismay, although the Lion was warned that orbital bombardment was out of the question. The Lion simply rolled his eyes and did it anyway (in a very sneaky way of course); he orbitally dropped the Dreadwing into the mountains and had them wreck the place with their full arsenal of proscribed weapons. The Lion cleaned up the mess that Guilliman should have dealt with a long time ago, but then again that is what the Lion was there to do; he was there to do the dirty work so the other two could keep their hands clean.

The Lion cornered Curze in an isolated mountain range and ordered the Dreadwing to stand down before going in alone. Curze’s shadowman antics had grown predictable, especially for the Lion, who'd also started drawing more on his hunting instincts than in any of his previous portrayals. The final brutal confrontation between the brothers ended with Curze and the Lion reenacting the ''Knightfall'' comic as Batman and Bane, respectively. (seriously the similarities between Russ and the Lion are starting to add-up). The Lion dragged a paralysed, broken, and chained Curze before his brothers for trial, but Curze quickly flipped the script by revealing that the Lion did in fact disobey the direct order from Sanguinius regarding the use of excessive force. Despite doing all the dirty work and handing over Curze to them on a silver platter, the Lion was banished from Imperium Secundus and Guilliman broke the Lion Sword over his knee while delivering a pretty snappy one-liner. 
*An interesting scenario may have played out if the Lion hadn’t wiped out this militarized Chaos worshiping cult (they had kept their ‘faith’ hidden from the rest of the planet whilst Guilliman ruled, but now they had their own demigod on their side). If they had been left alive when the Primarchs and their forces left for Terra, this cult may have overrun the heart of Guilliman's realm in their absence. Guilliman on his return may have had to deal with his very own Caliban scenario; in hindsight Guilliman may actually owe the Lion big-time for removing them before they could become a major issue.
*There is certainly a whiff of hypocrisy coming from Guilliman here; even in the stories that features him 10,000 years later, he reminisces over the countless worlds that he had brought to ruin and the sheer number of species wiped from existence by his hands, all in the name of the Emperor. What the Lion had done was no different than what the Imperium routinely inflicted upon countless civilizations across the galaxy during the Great Crusade; the only difference is that now it was Guilliman's capital world that was affected. All of the primarchs have oceans of blood on their hands, and Guilliman getting angry because he was now on the other end of the brutality of the Emperor's Crusade is rather funny.

As the Dark Angels were preparing to leave, the Lion had an epiphany regarding Curze's visions; if Curze’s fate was to be executed by an assassin at the Emperor's command, then he needed to be still alive for such an order to be given. If Curze were to be killed before he was meant to be killed, then the loyalists might inadvertently bring about a future where the Emperor’s fate could be drastically changed for the worse. The Lion immediately went back down to Macragge, giving up the last chance he had of saving his legion and homeworld, bent the knee to his brothers and begged them (SERIOUSLY IF ANYONE STILL HAS ANY DOUBTS REGARDING HIS DEVOTION TO THE EMPEROR THEN YOU DESERVE A SLAP) to spare Curze’s life (he’s got better plot armour than the Space Wolves at this point) and pledges to be his brother’s keeper.

Now knowing that Terra still stood, the three Primarchs gathered the bulk of their forces and headed into the Ruinstorm, with the intent of forcing their way through. Sanguinius would end up almost having a major falling out with the Lion after Hawk Boy decided to break Curze out of his prison, leaving a trail of unconscious Dark Angels behind him, so that Sanguinius and Curze could go to Davin and find out what remained there. The Lion was so pissed that he nearly ordered the planet destroyed with his brother still on it. Realising what he had almost ordered, the Lion deduced that even now the enemy was manipulating them, subtly playing upon their fears, dreams and wants and exploiting their personalities and natural instincts to drag them down a path of fate that would only lead to their self-destruction. Feeling the invisible chains that had shackled him without his notice, he immediately sent a message to Guilliman, warning him to be watchful, as they could no longer trust their first instincts. The message was received by Guilliman, who took the hidden meaning very seriously as he himself was suffering his own inner conflicts of self-doubt and inaction.

Once through the Ruinstorm, the three fleets parted ways. Whilst Guilliman’s fleet tried to punch a hole through the traitors' ships in order to allow the Blood Angels to get to Terra, the Lion and his forces went on an Exterminatus spree through traitor-held space in order to draw more of Horus’s forces away from Terra. Did you ever wonder why there are no mentions of the traitor primarchs' homeworlds after the Heresy? The Lion and the Dark Angels are why. The Lion unleashed destruction of unprecedented scale, crushing traitor world after traitor world across the galaxy. When the traitors were defeated at Terra, there would be no safe haven for them to run to.

One of the biggest lessons the Primarchs took from their trip through the Ruinstorm was that symbolism and symbolic actions were very important when fighting the forces of Chaos. A sword is a more effective weapon than a firearm, not because it's more powerful, but because the person has to be the one to drive the blade home. Decisive and thorough action was crucial. The Lion took this lesson to heart; he wouldn't just destroy his enemies, he would wipe them out completely, root and stem.

===Exterminatus Campaigns===
This period of time would be known as ‘the passage of the Angel of Death’, as the Lion would throw aside any notion or façade of the ‘hero’/‘savior’, and would fully embody the aspect of the ‘destroyer’. The Dreadwing, whose actions were normally highly controlled and sanctioned were let completely off the chain, and where they walked, worlds burned. (Farith Redloss once asked if the Lion was sure he wanted to unleash the Dreadwing, as he knew that once the order was given no quarter would be given; among the legion, Redloss was a well known warmonger, and even he was like ‘are you sure you want to do this?’)

Just as he told his brothers he would, the Lion tore a path of destruction through the traitor territories. His legion destroyed [[Chemos]], [[Nuceria]], and many other worlds, but by the time they reduced [[Barbarus]] to space dust, they began to realise that they were not having the desired effect. The traitors seemed to be indifferent to the destruction of their homeworlds and refused to be drawn away from Terra.

The Lion had taken to haunting the abandoned levels of the ''Invincible Reason'' since the destruction of Luth Tyre. He didn't even bother to appear when Barbarus finally died. Although he didn't tell the legion the reason why, as it seemed the [[Astronomican]] was dead; now that the Ruinstorm was gone the Lion reasoned that the eight weeks of darkness combined with the prophetic visions of Curze and Sanguinius meant that despite their efforts Horus had won. All that was left to do was to make sure it was a hollow victory and the Lion would avenge his father by making sure Horus ruled over an empire of ash. This is expanded upon in ''Mortis''; the Astronomican is confirmed to have been snuffed out, not simply obscured, meaning that even though they may have wanted to get to Terra, they would be sailing blind. Only the Lion and his inner circle of trust knows this, however.

[[File:The broken blade.jpg|300px|thumb|right|Descriptions of the broken blade.]]

He confided only in Mistress Fiona, the ship's Navigator, and Stenius, the ship's captain. They had been reliant on Tuchulcha to travel since Luth Tyre, but had kept it a secret until they were sure of their chosen path. The revelation that Stenius had been a member of the Lion's innermost circle all along and had been trusted to use Tuchulcha came as a real surprise to Holguin, as it was a well-known fact among the legion that the Lion had been suspicious of his loyalties; turns out the Lion and Stenius are two fantastic actors.

A meeting was called to discuss what their next move should be, with the Lion demanding that all wings of the Hexagrammaton should be heard. Although the gathering took place, the Lion was nowhere to be found. The meeting started seemingly without him, the gathered assembly bowing to an empty throne. The debate gathered momentum with Astartes and mortals arguing on both sides. The Lion brought the heated debate to an end by suddenly appearing among them, seated upon the throne, catching them all by surprise. By remaining unnoticed, the Lion demonstrated that he may have been better at reading people than he let on. Without them being aware of his presence he was able to listen to the honest opinions of his legionaries, as well as his mortal crew. The mortals would never have spoken up in his presence and he was no longer getting open and honest answers from his voted lieutenants. The heads of the Hexagrammation were not just a military force but also acted as his closest advisors and confidants. Despite his efforts to reassure and encourage them to speak their minds, the death of the Brother-Redemptor at his hands had colored their view of the Lion. Although they may have had opposing views to their Primarch, they now kept them to themselves. This essentially isolated the Lion, leaving him alone without anyone he could truly confide in; this didn't help the fact that the longer the Heresy dragged out, the more the primal beast that slumbered in his heart was being pushed further to the surface. By remaining unseen he was able to get the honest views of both sides, which he wouldn't have heard if he had made his presence known.

Ultimately the Lion would choose to continue to attack the traitors' reinforcements, strongholds and supply lines, this was mostly due to the fact that without the light of the Astronomican to guide them back to Terra, they couldn’t make it back even if they wanted to.

Also of note: the book ‘Dreadwing’ insists heavily that the Lion's actions are having little effect, however later sources clearly refute this assessment. Malcador explains to Dorn how important the Lion's actions are in harming the forces of Chaos, and he is backed up by Sanguinius, who learned the same lessons as the Lion during their journey. It’s made clear that Horus’s forces are being starved of reinforcements for the [[Siege of Terra]] due to the Lion destroying anyone attempting to do so, and by destroying the traitor strongholds he is denying them any safe haven that they could retreat to. Horus' forces were now stuck between Terra and the loyalist noose slowly closing in around Sol and the traitor fleet (this pressure would help push Horus’s hand). [[pretend|It might have looked like]] the Lion's actions were having no effect from his own position at the traitor's backs, but they most certainly did.

The Lion was also not on his own, as he teamed up with many other scattered loyalist forces, including some Imperial Fists who had escaped the siege of their own homeworld. The Lion would also be joined by Russ (just like in the old lore), his legion, and the Raven Guard (Corax wouldn’t join them personally, but would lend a portion of his legion). The Lion would team up with his brothers long before the events in ‘Dreadwing’ would take place, which brings the canon events that happen in that book into question; the story overall stays the same but the details change.

Also, Corswain and some Dark Angels reach Terra on their own and jump into the fray to reignite the Astronomican, allowing the other Loyalists to get to Terra and take part in the siege - once it is back up and running it will be a race for the Lion and Russ to get to Terra in time, just like the older lore described.