Blood, Wolves and Ultrasmurfs

"As the longest serving chapter master of the Astartes, I declare the 1032nd decadal meeting open," Cervan Dante said from his chair which sat up against the round table. He, like the other eight chapter masters present, was clad in full armour, with his weapon within arm's reach. After what happened last time, they were all prepared.

"Commander Dante, I believe that 'decadal' is not, in fact, a word." Marneus Calgar, hardly fitting in his chair, stood up and spoke, the armour of Antioch bringing the chair with him.

"Shut up Ultrasmurf!" Logan Grimnar said angrily. Dante sighed 'here we go again...'

This happened every year, two of the chapter masters, one of them Ultramarines, had a fight. Dante had been to more than 100 of these meetings, and every time it was the same. Last year had been especially bad, the Iron Hands' master Kardan Stronos had insulted (unintentionally) Calgar, leading to the Ultramarines 5th compnay attacking the 7th of the Iron Hands. The Ultramarine company had been cut in half. One of the Iron Hands lost an arm when his plasma canon blew up, and had to have a new metal one attached. Other than that, the Iron Hands were unharmed. So much for the amazing Ultramarines.

"You two please, calm down. We don't want the Ultramarines completely destroyed this time," the Dark Angel's Azrael said calmly.

"Shuddup, we don't want your kind interferring, Dark Angel!" Logan shouted, slamming a hand on the table, breaking it down the middle.

"While I do not agree with his choice of words, I do agree with the sentiments expressed by the lupine character on the other side of the now broken table." Marneus did his best to sound eloquent, when really the mentioning of the last meeting had deeply annoyed him. But he felt he had to be above feeling anger, being a noble Ultramarine.

"Can we please get back to business?" Dante asked, his hand gripping the Axe Mortalis in readiness.

"Not until that man apologises," Calgar said firmly.

"I won't apologize to an Ultrasmurf like him!" Logan shouted, smashing his hands down again, breaking the table into quarters.

"You dare insult the greatest chapter ever?" Marneus' fury was now evident.

Then an axe swung and stopped just touching Marneus' nose. All eyes turned to Dante, who's glare was obviously full of rage, even through his death mask. "Greatest chapter eh? With you as master?" Dante swung the axe back, and a tiny amount of blood dripped down Calgar's nose, not that anybody noticed. "You think you're better than the rest of us? I have won more battles than you have killed enemies, and with my axe I've killed more men xenos and daemons than your entire chapter. Do you really want to fight me to prove you're the 'best?'"

Marneus stood up, and energy crackled through the gauntlets of Ultramar, "I will fi..." he began to say, but then Dante swung the blunt edge of his axe into Marneu's head, knocking him out.

"You okay now Dante?" Azrael asked, unfazed by the fighting.

"Yeah, I've just wanted to let that out for more than a millennium." Dante sat back down. "Now, onto our first order of duty, we have to decide on a chapter and it's descenders to go into the Eye of Terror on a mission, code name: Operation Kill Khorne. The mission is to reach Khorne inside the warp and fight him. Chances of success are approximately 0.0000001%. Although we should send a large group, and the largest group of successor chapters is..." Everybody turned to look at Calgar as he clambered up from the floor.

"What?" Calgar asked when they all stared at him.

"Marneus, how would you like to take you chapter and descenders on a little holiday?" Dante asked, smirking behind his mask.

"Where?"

"The warp..." Dante said.

"What's the catch?" Marneus asked.

'It's in the warp...' Dante thought, "Well we need you to defeat Khorne while you're there. Nothing you Ultramarines can't handle."

"Sure..."

10 Years Later

"As the longest serving chapter master of the Astartes, I declare the 1033nd decadal meeting open," Dante said, surveying the seven other chapter masters around the table, which had been replaced. "Our first order of duty, is to arrange the burial of what's left of the Ultramarines..."

Bis Bald

BW