Tilling the soil, planting the seeds, watching them grow, harvesting the fields, and then selling them at a fair price so that even the poorest in society could afford to buy them. Even if no profit could be made this was every farmers duty. To serve his fellow man, to help him, take care of him, and treat him as his own flesh and blood, this was how he and all the people in the Empire were brought up to think. All that mattered was the Empire as a whole, not the individuals wealth or well-being. Everything was to be done for the greater good of the Empire, no matter if one was to suffer in return, as long as it was for the Empires benefit it was good.
In the Empire everyone helped each other and crime was almost nonexistent, except for some splinter groups of greedy, heretical rebels who tried to break this way of life.
Despite these internal parasites and the countless xenos that sought to hinder mankind's advance through the stars, life was good. Under the rule of the Immortal Empress, the empire had stood strong for over ten thousand years and life was good.
In hopes of serving this beloved Empire and Empress even better, Chad had decided at a young age to leave behind his peaceful life on the farm and venture across the stars as part of the Empires army of countless billions. From planet to planet and star system to star system they moved exterminating all of the barbaric alien nations that infested their galaxy. But then one fateful day, two new threats came from outside our known galaxy.
One was an endless horde of demonic creatures that turned planets in their path into sickening nightmare worlds and corrupted the minds of weak men to become their slaves. The other was an endless swarm of monsters and beasts controlled by an unseen hive mind. Unlike the demons, they consumed all living things in their path leaving the worlds they conquered barren and utterly lifeless.
At the same time, the unknown plague had started to infect many of the Empires worlds leaving them defenseless before the aliens fleets. For years upon years, he and his comrades fought a desperate losing battle against these foes until they were rotated back to a more peaceful part of the Empire to replenish their losses. Though he didnt want to believe it and nobody ever said it, everyone knew deep down that they were losing this war. Despite this nobody was willing to give up as doing so would only mean certain doom for all of mankind.
If only the Empire were to have known of these threats then maybe the situation might not have been as dire as it had become. But more than anything he felt saddened by his own failure to the Empress, if only he could have done more if only he were but a bit stronger.
Wait why am I thinking of this now? I am a soldier of the empire, I am one of humanitys many shields assigned to defend the agricultural world of Achios, I am the Empressis devoted and loyal soldier and I am true to my ideals in the protection of humanity. I have pledged myself to exterminate all enemies of the empire even if they were to be my own flesh and blood. I am a dead man now?
Wait what? No, I cannot be dead! I was just, oh yeah that did just happen. I see so this empty void must be the afterlife where I will be expected to await my judgment. A judgment that is sure to be fair as I have died in glorious combat just as I and all my bredrin were expected to do. I am sure of it, without a doubt now I will be sent to meet the Immortal Empress and her immortal guardian angels in the golden halls of ten thousand golden pillars where all the names of the empires greatest fallen heroes are written by the angels themselves. There I will then be reborn as one of them to serve the Empire for an eternity, just as the priest had foreseen it to be for all of us mortal servants of the Empress.
Anxious to finally get to meet the Empires creator the Empress who was said to be a woman unlike any other a true goddess with flaming red hair that no mortal man had been granted the privilege to see for the past one thousand years. In excitement, he tried to open his eyes and feel his surroundings, but nothing happened. Calming himself down he then dug deep into his very soul and tried to sense his third unseen eye and sense his surroundings for others like him, just like the Psykers of the Empire were always told to do.
Floating in darkness he concentrated. Soon he started to hear voices of tens, hundreds, thousands, no, millions of voices crying out around him for someone to come and save them. It was a cry that brought back horrific memories of the weeping plague.
How was this possible? To his knowledge, he was not a Psyker or a force user as many called them. Such people were extremely rare and hard to find in the Empire and were said to have unnatural abilities. Abilities such as sensing the presence or even hearing the voices of people in far away distances even on other worlds or stars. It was said to be something like what he seemed to be doing right now.
The millions of voices were but a mess of incomprehensible jibberish to him. To make sense of it all he focused on the quietists and weakest voices of them all. With but a single thought his consciousness was then tossed at an inconceivable speed towards the source of the voice.
Stars flashed through his vision as he then landed back in darkness. But this time he could feel his body move slightly, he could feel a cold breeze blowing against his skin and he could feel a slight shiver run through his skin.
Then he smelled the cold air that flowed through his nose and into his lungs turning his inside temperature down. His ears twitched and nothing but the cold breeze could be heard.
Despite feeling the coldness seeping into him it didn't seem to go past a certain point as something bright and warm inside him was constantly keeping him warm.
With determination, he forced open his eyes and what greeted him was a deep blue sky and around him nothing but pure white snow. Gone was the sickening green-pox-filled sky of Achios and its desolate wastelands that were filled with toxic ash.
Relieved by this he wanted to toss his hands in the air and scream in joy, but to his surprise, his hands wouldn't move and all that came out of his mouth were baby noises. Noises that last he had heard from an infected infant that had tried to stab him with a butter knife before he shot a bolter through its crawling form. The thought of it still sent sickening shivers through him.
In confusion, he looked around and noticed that his entire body was wrapped in a blanket that was restricting his movements. From the corner of his eyes, he could see two dark figures in the distance. Dressed in what seemed like heavy winter clothing they were walking further and further away from him.
Opening his mouth once more he tried to call out to them but once more nothing but baby noises came out of his mouth. The two figures didn't seem to hear him as they got further away and disappeared into the distance leaving him alone lying there in the emptiness of this snow-covered land.
Not just wanting to continue laying there he attempted to pull his arms out once more. This time unlike before he felt a little bit stronger and managed to pull his arms out of the blanket.
In front of him what he now saw were not the familiar rough hands that had worked the land and trained like hell to become a soldier. No now the hands and arms, his hands and arms were that of an infant babies.
Although unlike what he remembered infant babies arms looking like, his arms seemed strong and a bit muscular. Pulling the rest of the blanket off his body the cold hit his bare skin and he saw his new naked form.
No longer was it the body of a man with 6-pack ABS, no, now his body was that of an infant baby with perfect 8-pack abs.
Had he been reborn as an Elite Spartan super soldier? From the stories he had heard the Spartans appearance straight from birth was just like he now was, a true warrior baby body.
Despite it clearly being too cold here for any infant or a regular man to survive without clothes, he for whatever reason wasn't feeling cold. Sure he did feel a small chill in the air, but that was it.
Moving his hands and legs in unison, he turned himself on his stomach and pushed himself to his feet. His balance felt a bit off for a moment but he quickly adjusted to his new small form.
Standing there naked in this snowy wasteland he noticed tall hills in the distance and to his right and left the terrain seemed to go down towards a big body of water. Was he on an island he wondered, but then where did those two people go?
Looking behind himself towards the direction of where the two had gone. There in the distance he could see the hill that he stood on sloping downwards towards vast flat snowy lands and beyond that in the distance, there was more water. By the looks of it, he seemed to be on a snowy desolate island somewhere.
With no real clues on where to go or what to do now, he decided to head toward the direction those two had gone to. Grabbing the white blanket off the ground and tying it around his neck like a cape he then set off into the distance.
With his new cape flipping in the wind the somewhat muscular infant baby then started to run across the snowy hill towards the shore down below. Thanks to his lightweight his feet didn't fall through the snow and like running along a smooth asphalt road he moved.
His leg muscles flexed and kicked the ground pushing him forward. Each time his legs touched the ground he could feel the snow melting slightly under his feet. He didn't know what was going on but for whatever reason his body was hot.
Coming to the edge of the hill he sensed something again. Just like with the millions of crying voices before, now he could sense two presences in the distance.
Hope flared up within him and he started to run with all his might towards these two presences. He ran and ran until his feet touched the cold water and the sand underneath.
Stopping there he focused his eyes and looked into the distance. There maybe 6 kilometres away he could see a boat moving away from the island. The boat was already so far, but still, he could see what he believed to be those two dark figures on it. They seemed to heading a bit towards his right away from the Island.
He wanted to follow but hesitated as he felt the coldness of the water slowly spreading from his legs up further into his body. Also, he wasn't sure how well he could even swim since it wasn't something that he had really been trained in, all he knew was the basics.
For now, he would need to retreat and wait for the waters to warm up. By the looks of his surroundings, the ice in the sea had already started to melt. Maybe summer was on its way and maybe the boat would be returning soon.
Stepping back onto the solid snow he looked around for anything that he might be able to use, anything he might be able to build a shelter out of. But again there was nothing but snow, ice water, and some small stones in the water.
Then as the wind picked up it carried strange noises from the other beach just some ways away behind him. Using his senses he focused on the direction of the noises. There in the distance, he could feel maybe a hundred presences of something other than humans.
Curious of this he started to make his way towards the voices. As he ran the voices became louder and louder, the sounds were a mix of hissing and barking noises.
Then in the distance, he could see the snowy ground end and be replaced by a rocky shore filled with seals. All over female seals were flipping around as male seals with their big noses fought each other for mating rights.
Running behind a large rock he watched the seals stealthily. Most small male seals ran from their duels but some massive seals used their heavy bodies and massive noses to slam into one another. The dueling males made strange roars toward the sky before slamming into one another, in the process some used their teeth to bite into their opponents tough skin.
Overall the rocky beach seemed like a noisy battleground of seals. The island being as desolate as it was he knew that this was maybe his first and only chance to get something to eat.
Though he was an infant baby boy by the looks of it, he was also an extremely unnatural infant baby boy.
Looking around the rocky beach he spotted a small female seal sleeping at the very edge of the pack of seals. With his target set, he then started to sneak towards the sleeping seal.
Using his small size he stayed hidden behind the large rocks and walked over the small bumpy and sharp rocks that littered the beach. Despite having an infant body the rocks didn't seem to bother him at all or cause any wounds to his feet as his skin seemed almost impervious to them.
Coming into touching distance of the sleeping seal he felt no remorse for what he was about to do to this innocent creature. During the Empires expansion through the stars, they had managed to terraform countless worlds to suit their needs and on many of these words, seals similar to these ones could almost always be found. And since the Empire almost never brought predatory animals to these new worlds the seal population in response would a lot of the time grow out of control. So it was a necessity for all citizens to hunt these creatures and keep their populations in check before they ate all the fish in the seas. Also, they did taste quite good.
But most important to him was what he could possibly use this seals body for. From it, he could harvest its sinew that can be used to produce exceptionally strong rope or twine. In fact, a strand of it no thicker than carpet thread can hold the weight of an average man. Because of its strength, sinew is especially good for making bowstrings, fishing lines, snares, wrappings, and threads. Also, such things can be used to tie things together and as such build shelters.
He flexed his muscles and grabbed a rock larger than his own head off the ground. Bringing it above his head he walked next to the still-sleeping seal.
Then as it seemingly seemed to smell that something was off it opened its eyes right in time to witness its coming doom.
" Splat! "