Editing Lion El'Jonson (section)

===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.